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Confidence in Institutions and Social Trust in Spain (1980-2005)
Paper prepared for the ECPR Joint Session, May 2007, Helsinki, Finland. Workshop on “Social Trust, the State and Diversity”.
Martiño Rubal Carmen Voces Mónica Ferrín
Miguel Caínzos
Contact: Martiño Rubal investigacion04.egap@xunta,es
0034 981 546 334 Escola Galega de Administración Pública
Rúa de Madrid, 2-4, 15707 Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Recent literature on social capital has emphasized that social capital can not be
considered apart from institutions (Levi, 1998; Hall, 1999; Stolle, 2002; Rothstein &
Stolle, 2002; Rothstein, 2005). More specifically, this so-called institutional approach
has highlighted that institutions (governments, parliaments, politicians, political parties
agencies which implement some policies, i. e. health system, education system) play
an important role in promoting social trust.
This paper deals exclusively with what is commonly regarded as one of the several
components of social capital: social trust1. Many factors have been stressed in the
literature as determinants of social trust (see Freitag, 2003, and also Welch and others,
2005). It is said that personal characteristics of individuals, either personality traits,
particular individual moral orientations acquired early in life (Uslaner, 2002), or other
beliefs as religion and stable political orientations (as political interest or ideology)
influence trust and confidence. Other determinants refer to social environment:
belonging to a certain community with certain characteristics (Paxton, 2002, Uslaner,
2002) or being part of informal social networks. Other important factors commonly
emphasized by literature are political participation and civic engagement, mainly
associational membership (Brehm y Rahn, 1997; Putnam, [2000] 2002; Stolle, 2001;
Newton, 2001; Uslaner, 2002; Herreros, 2004; but see Zmerli et al., 2007). Other
factors are related to personal resources of individuals (such as education) (Putnam,
[2000] 2002; Freitag, 2003). Finally, most recent research has put the accent on the
major role that institutions play as creators of social trust (Paxton, 1999; Hardin, 2002;
Rothstein & Stolle, 2002; Herreros, 2004; Rothstein, 2005). This presumed importance
of institutions invites us to guess that short-term political factors could have a non
negligible indirect influence in social trust through their impact on institutional
confidence2.
Recent research has identified a handful of institutions as cornerstones—together with
other factors—of the creation of social trust. Institutions held responsible for the
implementation of universal policies are said to contribute most to the feeling that “most
people can be trusted” (Rothstein & Stolle, 2002). According to this view, Police, Army,
1 Anyway, as Welch and others have stated, it is difficult to distinguish those factors which contribute to the formation of social capital from those that influence the formation of social trust (Welch and others, 2005). 2 In this paper we will not intend to review in a systematic way the literature about social trust or about confidence in institutions. For this purpose, see Rubal et al. (forthcoming).
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Courts, Health care System and Educational System are part of these institutions, and
differ from partisan “political/biased” institutions (Parliament, Government, Political
Parties) or “checking/control” institutions (Newspapers, T.V., Civil Service)3. This group
of authors assumes that implementation institutions have socialization effects, as
people in contact with them internalize messages of fairness, equality etc. that increase
trust in other people (generalized trust). There is, from this point of view, a positive
relation among confidence in certain institutions and social trust.
2. OBJECTIVES, DATA AND MEASUREMENT
We think that, if we take it seriously, the argument that institutions promote social trust
must be supplemented by two additional ideas. First, whether institutions in general
have this capacity or not should depend on their own perceived trustworthiness.
Secondly and closely related to the former, if institutions do really differ in their trust-
generating power, they should also differ in their trustworthiness. With these ideas as a
starting point we will set up an analysis of the relationship between –and the
determinants of- institutional confidence and social trust that will be developed in three
steps. Firstly, we contrast the hypothesis that citizens can distinguish among different
types of institutions when expressing their confidence, for a country (Spain) and a
period of 25 years (from the beginning of the democratic period until recent time).
Secondly, we try to examine the determinants of the institutional confidence in Spain,
considering the dimensionality of the confidence (whether there is more than one group
of institutions). Finally, we extend our analysis to another data set, incorporating more
variables to our initial model, in order to explore the direction of the relationships
among variables. In addition, we test the model in other five European countries to
examine the similarities and differences with Spain. Obviously, the extent to which we
will be able fulfil these objectives will be conditioned by the availability of data. We will
attempt to overcome the shortcomings of the available data sources by using three
different data sets.
A. Do citizens distinguish among institutions when they express their confidence? Our
first objective in this paper is to answer this question, for the Spanish case.
3 Although other typologies of institutions have been proposed in the literature (see for example Denters et al., 2007), we will take this taxonomy as a point of departure, and compare it with the results from previous work on the Spanish case.
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Objective1: to contrast the hypothesis that citizens discriminate between
different types of institutions when expressing their confidence.
For this purpose, the study of the dimensionality of institutional confidence during the
last 25 years in Spain, we carry out an individual level analysis of longitudinal data,
using information from 1980 to 20054. We compare the three dimensions of institutional
confidence established by Stolle and Rothstein (Rothstein & Stolle, 2002), with a two-
dimensional distinction we have obtained in a previous work, through a Confirmatory
Factor Analysis for each year (1980, 1990, 1996, 2001 and 2005), in order to observe
which of these models fits better to data.
We think that the case of Spain is especially interesting in this regard, because, at the
beginnings of the period we study, Spain completed a successful transition to
democracy. This gives special relevance to the longitudinal perspective, as it will allow
us not only to verify the existence of a distinction between the institutions, but also to
detect changes between a time when democracy was still emerging (1980) and later
periods, in which political life took place in a fully consolidated democratic setting.
B. The second objective we come through is the study of the determinants of
institutional confidence in Spain at the individual level during the period 1996-2005.
The results of our first objective will be conditioning the number of dependent variables
which will be considered in this second stage.
Objective2: to study some of the determinants of confidence in institutions
for the Spanish case, taking into account its dimensionality.
In this second step of our work, we were forced to restrict the data set previously used,
because the surveys of 1980 and 1990 did not contain enough information about the
alleged determinants of institutional confidence. Therefore, we use three
Latinobarometer surveys (1996, 2001 and 2005) from the Centro de Investigaciones
Sociológicas. In this second step, we run multivariate regression analyses addressed
to identify the determinants of confidence in institutions.
4 We use data from the World Values Survey (1981 and 1990) and from Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Barometer May 1990, code number 1871; Latinobarometer July 1996, code number 2218; Latinobarometer May 2001, code number 2417 and Latinobarometer October 2005, code number 2620).
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C. There has been much quarrel about the existence of a relation between social trust
and institutional confidence in the literature. Some authors detect a relation at the
aggregate level (Newton, 2001) or both at the aggregate and individual levels of
analysis (Hall 1999; Rothstein & Stolle, 2002). Others notice a reciprocal relation
among these two types of trust (Brehm and Rahn, 1997) or even do not find any
relation at all. Our hypothesis establishes a relation among confidence and trust,
although the direction is not clear. One of the main purposes at this stage of our work is
to elucidate the direction of this relationship. Besides, we will investigate the relation of
institutional confidence with other determinants stressed in the literature.
At the same time, in this phase, we try to broaden the scope of the analysis by
increasing the number of independent variables formerly employed in the regression
model. Thus, we will compare our model for Spain with other countries, in order to
discover similarities and differences between them, being Spain the reference5.
Objective3: to examine the relation among institutional confidence and other
variables (including social trust) and the direction of the relation between
confidence in institutions and social trust for the Spanish case, proposing a
model which we replicate for other European countries.
For this purpose, we will use data from the first wave of the European Social Survey
(2002/3). The methodology is based on the Structural Equation Model, and we make
an analysis of invariance of the model, comparing Spain with five countries: France,
Germany, Italy, Great Britain and Sweden.
In steps two and three of our work we have included five different types of variables.
The first one encompasses variables with a political component. Within this block we
can distinguish four subgroups. The first one concerns evaluation of -and satisfaction
with- the political and economic context (satisfaction with the government, satisfaction
with the present state of the economy and evaluation of current working of some
welfare policies). A second subgroup is formed by variables linked with orientations
which are usually assumed to be relatively stable, either value orientations (i. e.
political ideology) or motivational orientations (i. e. interest in politics). The third
subgroup refers to exposure to information about politics and links the two previous
groups of variables. Finally, there is a set of political variables associated with political
5 There are contextual factors that influence both social trust and institutional confidence. Our intention is not to create a model for each country, but just to find differences with the Spanish model.
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behaviour (voting and political participation). The second block of variables that we
have taken into account measures different socio-demographic features of individuals
(age, sex, education). The third block includes a single variable: satisfaction with life.
Beyond its undeniable dependence on the external context, we assume that this
variable has a stable component related to optimism and a feeling of control over one’s
own life; hence, we understand that it measures not only a transient state of mind or
mood but also a steady personality trait. The fourth block is one particularly relevant
according to the main thrust of the literature about social capital and social trust, and
has to do with sociability, both of a formal (participation in associations) and an informal
kind (relations with friends, relatives and workmates). The last block of variables is
related to religion6.
3. EMPIRICAL RESULTS
3.1 Study of the dimensionality of confidence in institutions
Recent literature has stressed the necessity of further elaboration of the concept of
institutional confidence. One of the most influential formulations distinguishes among
representative, implementation and control institutions. According to this view,
institutions with implementation functions are the most important in promoting social
trust, due to some of the characteristics they share (transparency, fairness,
universalism, impartiality) and their ability to exert a socialisation role.
We assume as a working hypothesis the possibility of the existence of different kinds of
institutions. But, instead of taking for granted any typology, our first goal in this paper is
to empirically adjudicate between two different classifications built upon the same set of
institutions (Political parties, Parliament, Government, Civil Service, Courts,
Newspapers, TV, Church, Army and Police). On the one hand, the typology suggested
by Rothstein and Stolle differentiates three sets of institutions (Model A, Figure 1). On
the other hand, an alternative distinction, based on our previous work, separates two
groups of institutions (Model B, Figure 1). For this purpose, we have compared the
whole fit of both models to survey data in Spain through confirmatory factor analysis.
6 For more details, see Appendix 1.
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Political/Biased
Institutions
Parties e11
1
Parliament e21
Government e31
Neutral/Order
Institutions
Courts e6
Army e7
Police e8
1
1
1
1
ControlInstitutions
Newspapers e11
T. V. e12
1
1
Church e91
Civil Service1
e10
PolíticalInstitutions
Parties e1
1
1
Parliament e21
Government e31
Social OrderInstitutions
Army e9
Police e10
Church e11
11
1
1
Civil Service e51
Courts e61
Newspapers e71
T. V. e81
Figure 1. Two models of the dimensionality of confidence in public institutions. The model proposed by Rothstein and Stolle7 differentiates three dimensions. The first
one is formed by political/biased institutions, that is, representative institutions with
elected officials: Political Parties, the Parliament and the Government. The second
group is formed by “neutral/order” institutions (the Courts, the Army, the Police; we
have added a fourth institution to this group – the Church – because, at least in the
Spanish case, it appears to be similar to the institutions belonging to this dimension).
And the last dimension, made up by actors with a control power, is formed by Civil
Service, Newspapers and Television.
Instead, our model distinguishes two different dimensions of the confidence in
institutions8. On the one side are those institutions which play an important role in
democratic political life, either as representatives of citizens (political parties, the
7 This model dropped out of two different analyses: one at the macro level with 50 countries, and the other at the micro level for Sweden. In both cases, the method used was Principal Component Analysis and results were quite similar (Rothstein & Stolle, 2002). 8 In a previous paper (Caínzos et al., 2006), as a preliminary step to an age-cohort-period analysis of the evolution of social trust and political confidence in Spain, we executed a Principal Component Analysis based on a pooled data set which merged data from several surveys covering the period 1980 to 2005. Two distinct components resulted: one with a political character, and the other with a social order character.
Model A. Stolle & Rothstein, 2002 Model B. Caínzos et al., 2006
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Parliament and the Government), as external control agents (newspapers and
television), or as internal control agents (Civil Service and Courts). On the other side,
the second dimension is made up of social order institutions: the Army, the police and
the Church.
χ2 df χ2/df GFI AGFI NFI CFI RMSEA
1980
Model A 613.65 12 51.14 .917 .805 .906 .908 .153
Model B 332.41 13 25.57 .958 .910 .949 .951 .107
1990
Model A 772.03 24 32.17 .865 .748 .758 .762 .162
Model B 792.22 26 30.47 .860 .758 .751 .757 .157
19902
Model A 223.81 7 31.97 .974 .921 .986 .987 .104
Model B 69.17 8 8.65 .992 .978 .996 .996 .052
19963
Model A 880.18 32 27.51 .920 .862 .919 .922 .103
Model B 675.67 34 19.87 .945 .910 .938 .941 .087
20013
Model A 628.55 32 19.64 .948 .911 .945 .947 .086
Model B 1447.58 34 42.58 .890 .823 .873 .875 .129
20053
Model A 697.88 32 21.81 .954 .920 .928 .931 .083
Model B 867.84 34 25.53 .948 .916 .911 .914 .090
Sources: 1 World Values Surveys (measure: 1 to 4); 2Barometer, Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (measure: 0 to 10); 3 Latinobarometer, Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (measure: 1 to 4). Table 1. Goodness of fit statistics for two models of the dimensionality of confidence in public institutions.
We tested the two models for 1980, 1990, 1996, 2001 and 2006 in order to encompass
a wide period9. Surveys employed were mainly chosen by two reasons: the availability
of the questions about institutional confidence, which appear for the first time in 1980 –
it reappears again in 1990; and the selection of a sufficient distance between the
surveys, which would allow to trace possible changes over time (to examine the
available institutions for each of the selected years, with their means and typical
deviations, see appendix 2).
Although there are differences in the results obtained for each year, we can find a
similar pattern for some of them. If we focus our attention on global indexes of
goodness of fit, as displayed in table 1, we could say that our model achieves better
values for three surveys (1980, 1996, and the second of the surveys we have used for 9 See footnote 4 for more details about the surveys used in this analysis.
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1990), whereas Rothstein and Stolle’s model is more successful for the 2001 and 2005
surveys. Nevertheless, this general assessment of the models must be nuanced when
we also examine the values of the estimates parameters for the different models, and
not only to the goodness of fit statistics (see appendix 3).
Survey data collected in 1980 are more clearly characterized by the existence of two
dimensions (political and social order institutions), as shows the fact that in the two
indexes of global goodness of fit considered here (GFI and AGFI) model B achieves
values above 0.90 and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA)
borders its admitted value (0.10). Better results for this model are also observed in the
Normed Fit Index (NFI) and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), very close to 0.95. Model
A performs quite worse for all these indexes. Summing up, it seems to be more
appropriate for this year to maintain a two-dimensional solution.
Both models proved to fit very poorly to the data of the first survey that we used to
contrast their validity in 1990. According to the values from table 1, none of the models
achieves fit values within the recommended range of acceptability. Therefore, to solve
this weakness, which could be due to some peculiarity or anomaly of this survey, we
resorted to a different data source for this year10. Although this new survey has its own
deficiencies — it includes only 6 from the initial sample of 10 institutions —, both
models exhibit an excellent global fit, even though results are better for model B.
Nevertheless, if we check the correlation among the latent variables (see appendix 3),
we can observe an extraordinary overlap between factors, what points towards a one-
dimensional solution as the best description of this sample data.
For the 1996 data, both the goodness of fit statistics and the adequacy of parameters
estimates indicate the convenience of maintaining model B as the more valid
approximation to the components of confidence in institutions. Once again, data show
that the dimensionality is lower than that proposed by Rothstein and Stolle.
Data from 2001 reveal Model A to be the one with best fit. Nevertheless, correlation
between the political/biased and neutral/order factors is over 0.90, what reflects that
the distinction among both types of institutions is quite blurry. This makes us think that
10 In this survey (a barometer of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas), confidence in institutions was measured using an eleven points scale (from 0 to 10), instead of the scale of 1 - 4 of WVS and Latinobarometer. Moreover, the sample is larger in this study.
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it is convenient to be cautious about the viability of the three-dimensional solution, even
if it offers a good fit to data.
Finally, Model A successes with data from 2005. However, in this case we must notice
that correlation between political/biased institutions and neutral/order institutions falls
outside the admissible range, surpassing value 1.0. These results lead us again to
reject the existence of three dimensions and throw us back to two-dimensionality.
Concluding, dimensionality of confidence in institutions in Spain seems to be restricted
to one or two dimensions for all the years we analysed. Even if, at first sight, a model of
higher dimensionality seems to have a better fit for some of the samples, this view is
disconfirmed by an inspection of the parameters of that model, which point towards the
preferability of a simpler solution. It is worth to draw attention to the fact that this low
dimensionality of institutional confidence is present all along a time-period through
which Spain suffered dramatic political and social changes. More specifically, we find
one- or, more commonly, two-dimensionality both in a moment of early development of
democracy and at a time when citizenship had a relatively long experience of living
under normal democratic political conditions. Hence, it does not seem that low
dimensionality of political confidence should be seen as an ephemeral phenomenon,
but rather as a stable feature of the structure of Spaniards’ political attitudes.
The preferred solution reduces institutional confidence to two factors. On the one hand,
confidence in social order institutions, which encompasses attitudes towards three
institutions: the army, the police and the church; the loadings of the army and the police
are consistently high along the whole time period, while the church presents lower
values after 1990. On the other hand, confidence in political institutions; under this
heading are subsumed government, parliament, political parties, courts, civil service,
newspapers and TV. Three of them have persistently high scores (government,
parliament and political parties), while other two have high loadings on this dimension
in most years (civil service, with the only deviation of 2001; and courts, with the
exception of 2005); newspapers and TV are the items which work worse in all years.
3.2 The determinants of confidence in institutions
Once we have knowledge of the existence of two types of institutions through factor
analysis, we are now able to study the elements that influence levels of institutional
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confidence in Spain. Moreover, considering both dimensions – social order institutions
and political institutions – will permit us to find out whether there are determinants that
are more relevant for one or another type of institutional confidence. That is, we will try
to establish which are the elements that promote confidence in social order institutions
as well as those that explain confidence in political institutions.
In this step of our work, we have been forced to restrict the scope of our data set,
because several of the surveys we used in our dimensionality analysis do not include
the kind of explanatory variables which have been given saliency in the literature on the
determinants of institutional confidence. For this reason, we will only use data from
1996 (Latinobarometer, CIS 2.218), 2001 (Latinobarometer, CIS 2.417) and 2005
(Latinobarometer, CIS 2620) surveys. They incorporate some important variables for
the analysis of social and institutional confidence, even if they are not wholly
satisfactory, because they lack information on such relevant aspects as political
participation and associational involvement.
By analysing data from these years, we cover a time period characterized by
consolidated democratic institutions, after almost twenty years of democracy.
Nevertheless, this period presents substantial diversity in terms of the prevailing
economic and political conditions, which may be of interest in order to check whether
changes in political climate alter the level of institutional confidence and, above all,
whether they modify the relationships between attitudes towards institutions and our
independent variables.
Year N Mean St. Dev. Stat. sign. of differences between the means
Year P<
2001 0.000 Political institutions 1996 2.062 16.66 4.74 2005 0.000 1996 0.000 Political institutions 2001 2.194 17.67 4.64 2005 0.001 1996 0.000 Political institutions 2005 2.614 17.24 4.42 2001 0.001 2001 0.003 Social order institutions 1996 2292 7.96 2.26 2005 0.015 1996 0.003 Social order institutions 2001 2338 7.74 2.27 2005 0.801 1996 0.015 Social order institutions 2005 2857 7.78 2.25 2001 0.801
Entries in the last column are p values associated with the Scheffé test.
Table 2. Aggregate levels of confidence in public institutions in Spain, 1996-2005.
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Table 2 reports the aggregate level of confidence in both political and social order
institutions for years 1996, 2001 and 2005, making possible to discern some
differences among them. Confidence in social order institutions would decrease very
mildly between 1996 and 2001, and then remains unchanged in 2005. Instead,
confidence in political institutions attains its highest value in 2001, and declines slightly
between 2001 and 2005. It is important not to overrate the magnitude of these
differences, but, with some caution, they might be interpreted as symptoms of more
general short-term movements in Spanish public opinion. The 1996 Latinobarometer
was done within a post-electoral frame, which would recover political stability after
several years of political turmoil related with corruption scandals; that climate could be
conducing to a relatively low level of confidence in overtly political institutions and,
conversely, could lead people to be more confident in social order institutions. Instead,
2001 was characterised by political stability, with the PP governing with absolute
majority in the Parliament, and had been preceded by several years of vigorous
economic growth; this could generate a feeling of security in public opinion, resulting in
a reinforcement of the confidence in political institutions. The small decline of
confidence in political institutions between 2001 and 2005 could be associated to the
high degree of polarization which pervaded Spanish political life since the 2004 general
election took place in unusual and very conflictive circumstances.
Anyway, the magnitude and possible explanations of these aggregate changes are
only of secondary interest for our purposes in this section of the paper. As stated
above, our main concern is to evaluate the relevance of some alleged factors of
institutional confidence and to assess its temporal consistency. For this we have run
two multivariate regression analyses. The need to assure comparability among the
three years has limited the range of independent variables which we could introduce in
our model. With this limitation, the model attends to some important factors for
understanding institutional confidence (a brief description of the independent variables
can be found in Appendix 1). These are of three types: sociodemographic features,
religion, and political variables.
Firstly, some socio-demographic variables have been generally related with higher
levels of institutional confidence. For example, literature states that people with more
studies or middle aged individuals tend to be more confident. Both variables are
included in the model, together with sex.
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Religion is considered here as a combination of religious orientations and observance,
which seeks to observe the existence of differences among Catholics, members of
other religions or non religious individuals, as well as among catholic practitioners, in
relation with institutional confidence.
Several kinds of political variables are also included in the regression model. First of
all, those related to stable value and motivational orientations: ideology and interest in
politics; these orientations may guide individual attitudes towards public institutions.
Secondly, we give place to variables representing more contextual views, such as the
evaluation of the economic situation, because they shape the way individuals perceive
the efficiency of institutions (for example, if there were a gap between government
performance and citizen’s expectations, institutional confidence could be reduced).
Vote in last national elections should probably be seen as a sort of link among stable
political orientations and short-term evaluations: it is highly dependent on long-term
political allegiances but it is also highly responsive to stimula from the immediate social
and political environment; furthermore, it is reasonable to expect that it will bias all kind
of political perceptions and evaluations. Finally, we pay attention to the exposure of
individuals to political information in diverse media. It is not easy to predict the sign of
its effects. It could work as promoter of institutional confidence, because being
informed about institutions would reinforce familiarity with them, and therefore make
institutions be closer to citizens; but it could also contribute to erode it, be it due to the
extensive coverage of negative aspects of political life (such as political scandals) in
mass media, or due to a raising of the standards of civic exigency among the most
informed citizens.
The regression model is:
Yinstitutional confidence= β0 + β1Age + β2Education + β3Sex + β4Religion + β5Ideology +
β6Political information + β7Vote in last national elections + β8Valuation of economic
situation + e 3.2.1. Determinants of confidence in social order institutions When comparing the determinants of confidence in social order institutions in 1996,
2001 and 2005, we do not find substantial discrepancies from year to year. Instead,
most of the variables introduced in the model behave similarly. Main disparities are
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located in those variables related to political information and interest in politics, while
the magnitude and significant of coefficients of the other independent variables do not
strongly vary.
Attending to socio-demographic variables, only age is significant in our model for 2001
and 2005. Thus, older people seem to be more confident in social order institutions
than young people, even if the effects are small in both cases. Regarding education,
effects are significant in none of the years, even if we do not control by the other
independent variables11, what would contradict the hypothesis of the existence of a
relationship between higher levels of education and more institutional confidence.
Religion is the most outstanding variable of the model, as shown by the magnitude of
its coefficients and their significance. However, we must be cautious with their
interpretation, because of the presence of the Church as part of the dependent
variable. Faith in another religion different to Catholicism or not being religious is
clearly related to less confidence in social order institutions, compared with those who
are catholic. Moreover, the more practicing are catholic individuals, the more they tend
to trust in social order institutions, as coefficients grow from those who are not very
practicing to the individuals who say they are very practicing, being the “Catholic
practicing” the reference category. Religion is therefore a central determinant of
confidence in social order institutions.
Coefficients of the variable of ideology are positive and significant for the three years,
what indicates that right – wing individuals demonstrate to be more confident than
leftists. This is what we would expect, given the emphasis rightist ideologies have
traditionally put on issues of social order and stability. This effect of the ideology is
compounded by the impact of vote in last national elections, as individuals who voted
PSOE, IU, another party or did not vote are significantly less confident than those who
voted PP, independently of the party in the Cabinet in those years. Indeed, even when
PSOE is governing (2005), PP voters still have more confidence in social order
institutions than other citizens.
Net of the effect of other political variables, interest in politics appears to be positively
related with more confidence in social order institutions. Only 2001 is different at this
point, as coefficients of political interest are not significant for this year (apart from for
11 When attending to the education as an unique independent variable, effects are not statistically significant.
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the category “quite interested”). The effects of the variables linked with political
information are not remarkable, with the exception of “Exposure to political information
by reading newspapers”, which has significant but tiny negative effects in 1996 and
2001.
1996 2001 2005
B St. errors B St.
errors B St. errors
Age 0.005 0.003 0.009 *** 0.003 0.017 *** 0.003 Education (r: primary education) Higher education 0.039 0.131 0.148 0.138 -0.147 0.112 Secondary education 0.040 0.106 -0.053 0.108 -0.018 0.096 Less than primary education 0.168 0.131 -0.093 0.117 0.006 0.115 Without information -0.437 0.507 0.468 0.372 0.300 0.301 Sex 0.009 0.082 -0.061 0.083 0.004 0.074 Religion (r: Catholic; observant) Catholic; very observant 0.660 *** 0.191 0.666 ** 0.224 0.243 0.226 Catholic; not very observant -0.738 *** 0.109 -.583 *** 0.117 -0.617 *** 0.112 Catholic; not observant at all -1.497 *** 0.122 -1.535 *** 0.122 -1.267 *** 0.114 Another religion -1.779 *** 0.296 -1.661 *** 0.218 -1.554 *** 0.229 Not religious -2.710 *** 0.137 -2.666 *** 0.158 -2.415 *** 0.124 Without information -1.392 ** 0.442 -1.913 *** 0.310 -1.730 *** 0.309 Ideology 0.142 *** 0.025 0.194 *** 0.030 0.235 *** 0.025 Political interest (r: Not al all interested) Very interested 0.448 ** 0.165 0.014 0.168 0.567 *** 0.140 Quite interested 0.305 ** 0.113 0.259 * 0.113 0.308 *** 0.100 Hardly interested 0.161 0.103 -0.043 0.103 0.283 *** 0.093 Political information Exposure to political information at TV 0.013 0.017 0.025 0.017 0.015 0.016 Exposure to political information to the Radio 0.030 * 0.013 -0.013 0.013 0.013 0.012 Exposure to political information in Newspapers -0.034 * 0.016 -0.056 *** 0.016 -0.025 0.015
Vote in last national elections (r: PP) PSOE -0.344 ** 0.126 -0.387 ** 0.133 -0.232 0.119 IU -0.793 *** 0.175 -0.506 ** 0.017 -0.701 ** 0.230 Other -1.026 *** 0.161 -0.993 *** 0.177 -1.048 *** 0.166 Did not vote -0.402 0.240 -0.727 *** 0.128 -0.550 *** 0.123 Without information -0.776 *** 0.113 -0.465 *** 0.131 -0.500 *** 0.123 Valuation of economic situation (r: Bad) Very good -0.977 1.065 1.001 ** 0.347 0.730 0.397 Good 0.646 *** 0.153 0.518 *** 0.135 0.570 *** 0.114 So-so 0.251 ** 0.089 0.235 0.123 0.286 ** 0.099 Very bad -0.277 * 0.141 -0.713 ** 0.250 -0.464 ** 0.179 Constant 8.135 *** 0.256 7.627 0.294 6.933 0.263 N 2.179 2.213 2.720 R-squared 0.361 0.337 0.338
r: Reference category. Significant differences with 2005 in bold. * Significant at 10%; ** Significant at 5%; *** Significant at 1%. TABLE 3. Factors of confidence in social order institutions. Finally, effects of the valuation of the economic situation are significant and quite
strong for most of the categories in comparison with those who affirm that the
economic situation is bad: the better is the opinion about the economy the higher are
levels of confidence.
16
3.2.2. Determinants of confidence in political institutions Contrary to confidence in social order institutions, where little difference could be
established between the three years, there seem to be more temporal variation in the
results when trying to explain confidence in political institutions. There are important
differences among 2005 and the other two years, as shown in the table 4 (differences
with 2005 are marked in bold). In spite of these fluctuations, some similarities can be
found.
The main regularities concern the strength of the influence of interest in politics and
valuation of the economic situation. The magnitude of their coefficients reveals that
these are probably the variables that have the most pervasive and consistent impact
over the whole period. Higher levels of political interest are related with more
confidence in political institutions. Something similar happens with the valuation of the
economic situation: the better is the perception of the economy the higher is the
confidence in political institutions. Less strong, but also persistent along the time, is the
effect of exposure to political information at TV, which has always a positive sign;
perhaps this is due not only to the impact of political information in itself, but also to the
fact that people who watch TV more often have distinctive profiles according to some
characteristics which are not included in our model.
The remaining variables behave less regularly over time. Ideology has a relatively
important positive effect in 1996, which becomes non significant in the other two years.
Even more impressive, but maybe predictable, is the change of the effects of “Vote in
last national elections”. While in 1996 and 2001 all categories but IU voters have less
confidence in political institutions than PP voters, in 2005 only PSOE voters differ
significantly from PP voters, and this difference has a positive sign. The change in the
party in office can explain this dramatic change in the sign of the relationship. Thus,
individuals would have more confidence in political institutions if the party they voted for
were in the Cabinet. In 1996 and 2001, when PP is governing, voters who had not
voted PP were less confident in political institutions than those who voted PP. Instead,
in 2005, only those who voted PSOE have more confidence in political institutions. In
summary, it looks like confidence in political institutions has an important partisan
component.
17
Religion also counts differently as an explanatory variable for each year. Whilst
coefficients are significant in all categories but two in 2001 and 1996 (“Catholic very
observant” in both years, “Catholic not very observant” in 2001 and “Without
information” in 1996), with more negative effects for those who are not religious or are
believers of a religion different of Catholicism, religion is much less relevant in 2005. In
this year, only one group (“Not religious”) differs from the reference category.
Finally, level of education affects the confidence in political institutions merely in 2005,
with negative coefficients, apparently contradicting the expectations we would derive
from the literature. This is due to the following reason: when introduced in the
regression model as unique independent variable, the effects of education level are
positive, though quite often non significant; however, once we consider other variables,
the effects are progressively cancelled and even become negative for 2005.
1996 2001 2005 B e B e B e Age -0.006 0.006 0.001 0.006 0.003 0.005 Education (r: primary education) Higher education 0.284 0.282 0.272 0.285 -0.529 * 0.224 Secondary education 0.094 0.232 0.150 0.224 -0.524 ** 0.195 Less than primary education 0.339 0.307 -0.014 0.248 -0.318 0.244 Without information 1.740 1.072 1.491 0.823 0.725 0.636 Sex -0.087 0.180 -0.262 0.174 -0.406 ** 0.151 Religion (r: Catholic; observant) Catholic; very observant -0.582 0.450 -0.037 0.513 -0.080 0.473 Catholic; not very observant -0.403 *** 0.244 -0.473 0.246 0.184 0.234 Catholic; not observant at all -1.440 *** 0.272 -1.379 *** 0.256 -0.159 0.237 Another religion -1.284 * 0.636 -1.576 *** 0.466 -0.445 0.463 Not religious -1.571 *** 0.299 -2.970 *** 0.332 -0.993 *** 0.255 Without information -0.241 0.962 -2.188 *** 0.634 -0.899 0.635 Ideology 0.215 *** 0.055 0.101 0.063 0.084 0.050 Political interest (r: Not al all interested) Very interested 2.303 *** 0.362 0.864 * 0.348 1.524 *** 0.282 Quite interested 1.861 *** 0.251 1.286 *** 0.237 1.724 *** 0.205 Hardly interested 1.395 *** 0.233 0.670 ** 0.218 1.520 *** 0.194 Political information Exposure to political information at TV 0.155 *** 0.039 0.168 *** 0.037 0.097 ** 0.033 Exposure to political information to the Radio -0.046 0.030 0.001 0.028 -0.026 0.025
Exposure to political information in Newspapers -0.022 0.034 -0.049 0.033 -0.002 0.029
Vote in last national elections (r: PP) PSOE -0.507 0.283 -0.609 * 0.279 1.396 *** 0.243 IU -0.275 0.383 -0.486 0.453 0.482 0.455 Other -0.950 ** 0.350 -1.592 *** 0.364 -0.109 0.339 Did not vote -1.633 *** 0.513 -1.347 *** 0.270 0.135 0.254 Without information -1.083 *** 0.254 -0.784 ** 0.277 -0.007 0.252 Valuation of economic situation (r: Bad) Very good 3.107 2.249 2.118 ** 0.780 5.324 *** 0.826 Good 2.772 *** 0.342 1.811 *** 0.286 3.062 *** 0.235 So-so 1.450 *** 0.198 0.885 *** 0.260 2.241 *** 0.207 Very bad -1.203 *** 0.313 -1.549 ** 0.544 -0.976 ** 0.365 Constant 14.491 0.571 16.503 0.619 13.503 0.545 N 1.974 2088 2499 R-squared 0.184 0.173 0.187
r: Reference category. Significant differences with 2005 in bold. * Significant at 10%; ** Significant at 5%; *** Significant at 1%.
18
TABLE 4. Factors of confidence in political institutions. 3.2.3 Confidence in social order institutions vs. confidence in political institutions After having analysed the two regression models for confidence in political and social
order institutions, some general conclusions can be drawn. Although there are
similarities among the determinants of confidence in social order institutions and
confidence in political institutions (for example, education has no significant effects on
institutional confidence), we discover some disparities which must be mentioned.
Those variables highly affecting confidence in social order institutions are directly
associated with more stable individual orientations, such as religion or ideology.
Indeed, being an observant Catholic is strongly correlated with more confidence in
social order institutions. Conservative individuals are also more confident in this type of
institutions. Contextual changes do not happen to influence their perceptions about this
kind of institutions, as there is no significant variation of these effects over time.
Confidence in political institutions, however, depends heavily on contextual political
factors such as the situation of the economy and, above all, the presence of one’s
preferred party in government. In actual fact, changes can be seen among the three
years in the impact of the independent variables (even modifying the effects of
allegedly stable individual orientations), as a result of the transformations in the
economy and the political life. Perhaps their most visible consequences can be seen
through the variable of vote in last national elections, in which coefficients are
completely different for 2005, on the one hand, and for 1996 and 2001, on the other.
The effect of having voted for the PSOE is significant and positive for this year,
whereas it is significant and negative in 1996 and 2001. Therefore, individuals tend to
have more confidence in political institutions when they feel close to the party that
governs.
The punch-line of this story seems quite straightforward. Interpersonal variations in
confidence in social order institutions depend heavily upon beliefs, political orientations
and political loyalties which can be seen as long-term predispositions of individuals.
Furthermore, the effects of these factors –and, more generally, of the determinants of
confidence in this kind of institutions- display a notable temporal persistence in their
19
magnitude and their sign. One is tempted to assert that confidence in social order
institutions is part of a general social worldview and that individuals can be expected to
be faithful to their views on this kind of institutions. Quite the opposite, confidence in
political institutions is more contingent on short-term factors, such as the valuation of
economic situation, and -perhaps more interestingly- on the interaction among, on the
one side, stable beliefs and political commitments and, on the other side, contextual
factors such as which party is in office. This last point implies that confidence in political
institutions is strongly affected by a partisan bias, which is in itself a stable explanatory
factor. However, it also means that individuals will be prone to change their confidence
in this kind of institutions according to their proximity to the political actors who are in
charge of running those institutions.
3.3 Towards a causal model of confidence in institutions and social trust
To carry out our third goal we have specified a structural equation model, trying to
achieve three different aims. Firstly, we will explore the direction of the controversial
relationship between social trust and confidence in institutions. Secondly, but at the
same time, we will pay attention not only to the relation between our two ultimate
dependent variables (social trust and confidence in institutions), but also to their
associations with some other variables that the literature has singled out as their causal
antecedents. This will let us try to test some of the relations that have been drawn by
scholars in this field of study. Thirdly we will compare the resultant model for Spain with
data from five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and United
Kingdom), in order to look for commonalities across countries. The existence of such a
regular pattern would give strong evidence for the robustness of the model.
3.3.1. Introducing the model.
Due to the number of variables taken into account, we have grouped similar variables
in blocks in order to simplify the presentation of the model, making easier for the reader
to understand its main components. In the following paragraphs we briefly explain each
of these blocks and the relations among variables that we have proposed (more
information about each variable can be found in an appendix 1).
20
Sociability. Within this block we include both formal and informal sociability.
Involvement in associations is usually thought as having an important role in promoting
social trust. Informal networks with friends, workmates and relatives have also been
underscored as cornerstones of social trust. The relation of both variables with
confidence in institutions is less clear according to literature. Our model states that both
formal and informal sociability are related to social trust and confidence in institutions,
but their effects on them could have different weights. We presume that associational
membership is influenced by religious observance, as it promotes membership in
particular kinds of associations. We also assume that it is easier for those strongly
related to friends, relatives and workmates to be part of associations because the
higher density of their social connections provides them the opportunity of entering in
organizations. The last pathway reaching associational membership comes from
political interest, as those more interested in politics are more prone to be part of public
good associations. Informal sociability receives one arrow in our model, coming from
religious observance, because attendance to religious services puts people in face to
face interaction settings, helping them to create and reproduce informal networks of
relations.
Satisfaction with life. This variable is considered here to be a trait of personality,
which could be based on adult life experiences (Delhey and Newton, 2002) but could
also be related to earlier influences or to the socialisation process at the first steps of
our life (Uslaner, 2002). It could have influence both in social trust and in institutional
confidence, because, as previously stated, we assume that satisfaction with life is
associated with a generally optimistic outlook and this, in its turn, entails more positive
attitudes towards the others. We have also drawn lines to variables related to levels of
satisfaction with the political context (with the government, the economy and welfare
policies).
Religious observance. This variable must stand alone as it is qualitatively different
from the others. It measures the frequency of attendance to daily practices in religious
services. We assume that it is an exogenous variable. Apart from the relations we have
already explained, we predict that it will influence political ideology.
Satisfaction and evaluation of different aspects of the functioning of the political system. In this block we include three different variables: satisfaction with government,
with the state of the economy and evaluation of welfare state policies (concretely health
care system and education). These variables have a more temporary character, and
21
partly depend on the electoral cycle. Satisfaction with the government can be directly
linked with institutional confidence. It should receive influence from closeness to the
party in government, because citizens’ attitudes towards government are not simply an
evaluation of its performance, but also involve partisan biases. The direct arrow from
satisfaction with the economy to satisfaction with the government is based on the
classical assumption of the literature about economic voting. In keeping with that
literature, we also predict that satisfaction with the economy is influenced by the
closeness to the party in government and impacts on institutional confidence. The
evaluation of welfare policies is directly connected to satisfaction with the government,
although there is a long-term component in both policies.
Stable political orientations. It includes value orientations (political ideology) and
motivational orientations (interest in politics). Even if less categorically, closeness to
the party in government could be considered under this heading, because it is
generally associated with political ideology12. These three variables have also been
stressed by literature as influencing confidence in institutions (Pharr and Putnam, 2000;
Denters et al, 2007). Apart from its relation to confidence in institutions, political
ideology has also a direct line to social trust, because left – right scale intends to
measure basic political orientations, which go together with different visions of human
being and, therefore, different conceptions about trustworthiness of others (Rosenberg,
1956).
Political participation. We include it in our model after some political variables
(ideology, political interest) and at the same position as associational membership. It
influences both social trust and confidence in institutions.
Our two main dependent variables are social trust and confidence in institutions. Both
are included in the model as latent variables, which make them different from all the
others. We have drawn a reciprocal relation between them, precisely because one of
our aims is to test which is the direction with a stronger weight.
12 This variable plays two roles in our model. On the one hand, it is important in itself, because partisanship strongly affects citizens’ evaluations of all kind of political objects. On the other hand, it plays an instrumental role. If we intended to include in our model the direct effects of ideology on political evaluations and on confidence in political institutions, we would probably find some artificial differences among countries in the sign of the coefficients, associated to the ideological profile of the party in government, because for some purposes the really relevant variable is not ideology but ideological distance to party in government. Introducing proximity to party in government as an intermediate variable allows capturing some of the effects of ideology in a way that is interpretable in a relatively consistent way across countries.
22
Social trust. This latent variable is formed by three items13 based on the five items of
the Rosenberg scale of misanthropy (Rosenberg, 1956). The first item measures
generalized trust of people, the second measures fairness and the third helpfulness.
Confidence in political institutions. The other latent variable is also formed by three
items. In the ESS there are questions about confidence in six different institutions. We
decided to exclude from our variable confidence in European Parliament and in United
Nations, due basically to two reasons: the first one was that item non response
severely reduced sample size, and the other one was that these two institutions were
qualitatively different from the others (these are less known institutions for people in
general, citizens have less contact with them). The other institution which was not
taken into account was the police, because our previous analysis of dimensionality
proved that this variable loads on the dimension of the social order institutions. With the
variables we use in our analysis (confidence in courts, politicians and the Parliament),
we assured a compact block of political/representative institutions.
Figure 2 presents a graphic representation of our model of social trust and confidence
in political institutions. Table 5 displays goodness of fit statistics for the six countries
included in our analysis, which reveal that the fit of the model is in general quite
satisfactory. Only the case of Italy requires some nuance of this general positive
assessment, and this is probably due to the small sample size.
13 As it has been recently demonstrated, it seems that the number of indicators and the precision of the measure are very important as the results of the analysis seems to change with three items and an 11-point scale compared with analysis with the traditional measures (see Zmerli et al., 2007).
23
Figure 2. Causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Original specification.
χ2 d.f. χ2/df GFI AGFI NFI CFI RMSEA RMR AIC
Spain 323.05 90 3.59 0.968 0.946 0.928 0.946 0.047 0.0457 449.05
France 378.97 90 4.21 0.968 0.946 0.924 0.940 0.049 0.0466 504.97
Germany 539.86 90 6.00 0.975 0.957 0.938 0.947 0.045 0.0336 665.86
Italy 486.12 90 5.40 0.945 0.906 0.875 0.895 0.070 0.0627 612.12
Sweden 364.29 90 4.05 0.973 0.955 0.941 0.954 0.044 0.0358 490.29
United Kingdom 399.25 90 4.44 0.976 0.958 0.949 0.960 0.043 0.0373 525.25
Table 5. Goodness of fit statistics for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Original specification.
In spite of the good fit of the whole model, an inspection of the estimated parameters
allowed us to observe that some of the relations initially considered were not relevant
at all. This leads us to simplify the model slightly by deleting those relations which
satisfied two conditions: they were not significant and their removal did not affect
significantly any of the other parameters of the model. This resulted in the re-
specification of the model displayed in Figure 3. Goodness of fit statistics for this model
are presented in Table 6.
SocialTrust
Trust_1 e1
Trust_2 e2
Trust_3 e3
Confidence in institutions
Courts e4
Politicians e5
Parliament e6
Religious observance
Informal sociability res1
Political interest
Political ideology res2
Closeness party government res3
Associationalmembership
res4
Politicalparticipation
res5
res7
Satisfactioneconomy
res8
res10
res11
State of welfare policies res6
Satisfactionwith life
res9
Satisfaction withthe government
24
Figure 3. Causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Final specification. χ2 d.f. χ2/df GFI AGFI NFI CFI RMSEA RMR AIC
Spain 331.99 97 3.42 0.967 0.948 0.926 0.946 0.046 0.0479 443.99
France 421.60 97 4.35 0.965 0.944 0.915 0.933 0.050 0.0505 533.60
Germany 612.94 97 6.32 0.972 0.955 0.929 0.940 0.046 0.0410 724.94
Italy 508.81 97 5.25 0.942 0.908 0.870 0.891 0.069 0.0619 620.81
Sweden 374.06 97 3.86 0.973 0.957 0.939 0.954 0.042 0.0366 486.06
United Kingdom 419.88 97 4.33 0.974 0.959 0.946 0.958 0.042 0.0406 531.88
Table 6. Goodness of fit statistics for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Re-specified model. 3.3.2. Substantive results for the model in Spain. Taking for granted the good fit of the model, we can now go into the core of our
analysis, that is, the examination of the estimated parameters of the model for Spain.
The first point on which we will focus our attention is the relationship between social
trust and confidence in political institutions. It should be recalled that our starting point
was the idea that public institutions have an outstanding role in the formation of social
SocialTrust
Trust_1 e111
Trust_2 e21
Trust_3 e31
Confidence in institutions
Courts e4
Politicians e5
Parliament e6
1
1
11
Religious observance
Informal sociability res1 1
Political interest
Political ideology res2 1
Closeness party government res3 1
Associationalmembership
res4 1
Politicalparticipation
res5
res7
Satisfactioneconomy res8
1
res10
res11
1
1
1
1
State of welfare policies res6
1
Satisfactionwith life res9
1
Satisfaction with government
25
capital and, more specifically, of social trust. Now, it seems reasonable to think that the
ability of social institutions to play that role will be contingent on the fact that citizens
have high levels of confidence in those institutions, although it could be plausible to
expect the existence of an influence with reverse direction. The estimated parameters
for the relationship between social trust and institutional confidence displayed in Table
7 show that the causal connection goes from confidence in institutions towards social
trust. Indeed, confidence in institutions is the best single predictor of social trust among
the variables included in our model: the standardized coefficient of 0.385 indicates a
moderately strong relationship. Meanwhile, the reverse effect is almost null and non
significant. These results allow us to specify the direction of the causal relationship
between these two variables, corroborating the expectation that institutional confidence
is a key factor in the generation of social trust, whereas the opposite is not true. This
confers great relevance to the elucidation of the factors that promote or inhibit
confidence in institutions.
Paramount among these factors are variables consisting in evaluations of – and/or
statements on level of satisfaction with – different aspects of the functioning of the
political system: government performance, state of the economy (which can be taken
as a determinant, or even a proxy, of the evaluation of government performance in this
area) and the current state of two major social policies (policies on health and
education). If we pay attention to the direct effects of these variables, satisfaction with
government stands out as the most important. However, as we turn to the sum of direct
and indirect effects, the total impact of the three variables becomes very similar. A
large part of the effects of satisfaction with the economy and evaluation of social
policies is channelled through satisfaction with government, something that is
consistent with expectations derived from previous research on the influence of policy
and economic evaluations on government popularity. The magnitude of the effects of
this set of variables gives support to the idea that citizens’ confidence in institutions is
highly sensitive to their evaluation of the functioning and outcomes of the political
system, i.e., to perceptions submitted to relatively short run fluctuations dependent on
the ordinary working of the political system.
26
Estimate S.E. P Standard.Regression Weights Religious observance → Political ideology 0.337 0.11 0.003 0.088Religious observance → Associational membership 0.050 0.02 0.029 0.063Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.110 0.03 0.001 0.092Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.238 0.04 *** 0.198Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.071 0.02 0.002 0.088Informal sociability → Social trust 0.053 0.04 0.130 0.048Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.219 0.03 *** 0.234Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.359 0.03 *** 0.331Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.142 0.03 *** 0.156Political interest → Associational membership 0.216 0.04 *** 0.140Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.074 0.06 0.194 -0.035Political interest → Political participation 0.572 0.05 *** 0.302Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.369 0.07 *** 0.167Political ideology → Distance party government 0.041 0.01 *** 0.161Political ideology → Political participation -0.003 0.01 0.624 -0.013Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.148 0.03 *** 0.130Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.294 0.04 *** 0.224Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.364 0.03 *** 0.247Associational membership → Political participation 0.352 0.03 *** 0.285Associational membership → Social trust -0.042 0.05 0.346 -0.031Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.021 0.04 0.621 0.015Political participation → Social trust 0.146 0.04 *** 0.133Political participation → Confidence in political institutions -0.033 0.04 0.377 -0.028State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.193 0.03 *** 0.149State of welfare policies → Social trust -0.014 0.04 0.714 -0.015State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.181 0.03 *** 0.176Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.586 0.03 *** 0.523Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.162 0.03 *** 0.183Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.283 0.03 *** 0.357
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions -0.034 0.07 0.607 -0.032Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.361 0.06 *** 0.385
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.775Social trust → Trust_2 0.945 0.05 *** 0.739Social trust → Trust_3 0.826 0.05 *** 0.643Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.888 0.04 *** 0.696Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.938 0.04 *** 0.759Confidence in political institutions → Parliament 1.000 0.797
Covariances Estimate S.E. P CorrelationReligious observance ↔ Political interest -0.014 0.04 0.728 -0.010res6 ↔ res8 1.151 0.11 *** 0.338
R2 Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 Political ideology 0.008 Distance party government 0.026 Associational membership 0.031 Political participation 0.196 State of welfare policies 0.073 Satisfaction economy 0.160 Satisfaction government 0.487 Satisfaction with life 0.048 Confidence in political institutions 0.349 Social trust 0.193
Table 7. Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Spain.
27
Besides these relatively short run political factors, a significant direct effect of political
interest can be seen. We take this as a signal of the relevance of a kind of stable
political orientation, in this case of a motivational nature. This stands in stark contrast to
what happens with another kind of political orientations, such as ideology: a previous
specification of our model included a path from political ideology to confidence in
institutions, but, contrary to our expectations, it proved to be entirely irrelevant.
Furthermore, although political ideology does exert an indirect effect on institutional
confidence through other variables included in our model, it is a tiny effect (standard
coefficient = 0.032), which is associated to its correlation with perceived closeness
between the individual and the political party in office (or one of the political parties in a
governing coalition). In its turn, this variable has a not inconsiderable impact on
confidence in political institutions (standard coefficient =0.198) through a pathway that
goes from party closeness to the political evaluation variables and from these to
institutional confidence. The most obvious interpretation for this indirect effect is that
citizens’ perceptions on government performance and the outcomes of social policies
are not the bottom-line of a strictly rational calculus but are shaped by their partisan
biases and channel out their effects.
There is still one more variable that plays a significant role in the explanation of
individual levels of institutional confidence – satisfaction with life. The whole effect is
indirect (standard coefficient =0.169) and it is mediated by political and economic
evaluations. There could be some disagreement about the direction and nature of the
causal relation between satisfaction with life and these political variables. However, we
lean to think that satisfaction with life is not simply a mirror reflection of the social and
political context or the reaction of the individual to the influence of that context in his or
her life, but rather it involves both a stable predisposition which can be seen both as a
personality trait and an outcome of the experience of social relationships in everyday
life (notice the coefficient of 0.198 for the path from informal sociability to life
satisfaction)14.
As striking as the positive findings we have just highlighted are some negative results
concerning two variables that have received much attention in the literature – political
participation and, especially, membership of associations. These two variables are
directly correlated, confirming that the probability of joining some kind of political action
14 At this point in the argument, it is worth to draw attention to the existence of a quite strong correlation between our variable of “satisfaction with life” and a measure of personal happiness (Pearson r=0.688, p<0.000).
28
increases together with civic involvement. However, none of these variables has a
significant effect on confidence in institutions. It is also noteworthy that, contrary to the
extended belief that participation in informal social networks and belonging to
associations are closely linked, we have found that the relationship between them is
quite small (standard coefficient = 0.088), though statistically significant.
Summing up the main outcomes of our analysis, we can point to three ideas
concerning the relative impact that the variables included in our model exert on
confidence in institutions. Firstly, political and economic evaluations are the most
important variables; this corroborates that, at least in Spain and as seen in the
regression analysis presented in section 3.2, interpersonal differences in confidence in
political institutions are highly dependent on contextual and short run factors, including
who governs. Secondly, there are two kinds of stable personal features that have a not
negligible impact on institutional confidence: on the one hand, general satisfaction with
life, which we understand as a proxy of an optimistic general outlook; and, on the other
hand, a positive interest in political affairs. Finally, it should be emphasized that some
variables which have been given great saliency in the literature –such as political
participation, civic engagement and involvement in informal social networks- play no
significant role in our model.
Even if our main concerns here are disclosing the immediate causes of variation in
confidence in political institutions and highlighting the fact that it is the main correlate of
social trust, there are a few additional points in our model that can shed some light on
the generation of social trust. For one thing, satisfaction with life enhances social trust,
both directly and in an indirect way, through its positive impact on institutional
confidence. In the second place, and a bit striking after what we have seen regarding
confidence in institutions, political participation has a significant (though quite weak)
effect on social trust; maybe political action works as a space of social learning that
contributes to promote generalized trust through the creation of the feeling of belonging
to a collectivity that extends beyond the realm in which individuals develop their
everyday life. Instead, the frequency of informal social contacts and the membership of
associations do not have a significant direct relationship with social trust.
3.3.3. Analysis of invariance of the model.
29
The next stage in our analysis has dealt with the possibility to generalize the model that
we have built to other European countries. For this purpose we have created a data set
selecting five additional countries covered by the ESS (France, Germany, Italy,
Sweden and the United Kingdom) and we have proceeded in two steps. Firstly, we
have replicated the model for each one of these countries. In a second moment, we
have made an analysis of invariance addressed to test the hypothesis that the main
parameters of the model for each of the countries are statistically equivalent to those
we had found for Spain. In this way, we try to identify invariant patterns in the causal
structure across countries.
χ2 df χ2/df GFI AGFI NFI CFI RMSEA AIC
SPAIN-FRANCE Unconstrained 753.59 194 3.88 0.966 0.946 0.920 0.939 0.034 977.59
Measurement weights 757.19 198 3.82 0.966 0.947 0.920 0.939 0.034 973.19Structural weights 788.77 222 3.55 0.964 0.950 0.916 0.938 0.032 956.77
SPAIN -GERMANY Unconstrained 944.95 194 4.87 0.970 0.953 0.928 0.942 0.033 1168.95
Measurement weights 945.89 197 4.80 0.970 0.954 0.928 0.942 0.032 1163.89Structural weights 977.03 216 4.52 0.969 0.956 0.926 0.941 0.031 1157.03
SPAIN -ITALY Unconstrained 840.84 194 4.33 0.956 0.930 0.899 0.920 0.040 1064.84
Measurement weights 846.77 197 4.30 0.955 0.931 0.899 0.920 0.040 1064.77Structural weights 884.43 225 3.93 0.953 0.936 0.894 0.919 0.038 1046.43
SPAIN -SWEDEN Unconstrained 706.06 194 3.64 0.970 0.953 0.933 0.950 0.031 930.06
Measurement weights 710.57 197 3.61 0.970 0.954 0.933 0.950 0.031 928.57Structural weights 735.08 214 3.44 0.969 0.956 0.931 0.950 0.030 919.08
SPAIN –UNITED KINGDOM Unconstrained 751.88 194 3.88 0.971 0.955 0.939 0.953 0.031 975.88
Measurement weights 752.40 197 3.82 0.971 0.956 0.939 0.954 0.031 970.40Structural weights 782.75 217 3.61 0.970 0.958 0.936 0.953 0.029 960.75
Table 8. Goodness of fit statistics for the analysis of invariance of the causal model of social trust and confidence in institutions. Two-way comparisons between Spain and five other European countries.
Table 8 reports the goodness of fit statistics of this analysis of invariance. It also gives
useful information on to what extent it is possible to constrain parameters to be equal
for each pair of countries. Three points deserve special attention. First, and keeping in
mind that we have tried to equalize 35 parameters (including 4 measurement weights
and 31 structural weights) and that if it were possible to achieve a complete
equivalence in all parameters we would get 229 degrees of freedom, the third column
in the table allows us to identify the number of parameters that cannot be equalized for
each comparison (i.e., the difference between de maximum of 229 d.f. and the number
30
of d.f. entered in the “structural weights” row). It can be seen that the largest similarity
is found between Spain and Italy, on the one hand, and between Spain and France, on
the other. In the first case, four parameters could not be constrained to be equal or,
seen from the reverse viewpoint, it was possible to equalize 31 out of 35, while in the
second case the parameters resilient to equalization were 7 and it was possible to
equalize 28. Secondly, the goodness of fit statistics reflected in the other columns of
the table make clear that there is no significant difference between the adjustment of
the unconstrained model and the final constrained model achieved for each pair of
countries. Finally, in an analogous way, inspection of the rows on measurement
weights leads to say that the total equivalence of the parameters of the measurement
model can only be stated for the comparison between Spain and France. In all the
other cases, it is necessary to relax the constraining assumption for one parameter,
which corresponds to the loading of “courts” on the factor “confidence in political
institutions”15.
Taking stock of all this information, the main substantive conclusion that we draw from
Table 8 is that the model we built for Spain cannot be extended to all the countries we
have included in our analysis. As a matter of fact, it is not possible to fully replicate the
model for any other country, because it is always necessary to relax some equality
constraints between parameters. However, it is also clear that some nuances should
be added to this blunt statement. First, it would be extremely ambitious to intend to
achieve full invariance of all the structural parameters across countries, especially
because the nature of some of the variables included in the model makes reasonable
to expect that both their distribution and their mutual relationships will be highly
dependent on the political context of each country and subject to short term
fluctuations. Second, under the cross-national variations that we have found, it seems
possible to disclose a pattern, which differentiates between two groups of countries
according to their degree of similarity to Spain. Our analysis has shown that there is a
high degree of commonality among Spain, Italy and France regarding the causal
structure specified by our model, while Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom
differ more sharply from those countries. Furthermore, all the differences we have
identified within the first group have to do with the kind of highly contextual political
variables we have just mentioned, while the divergence between groups also affects to
15 Tables in appendix 4 report both the parameters of the baseline model for the five countries that we have compared with Spain and the parameters of the constrained model for each comparison. In those tables, the parameters that cannot be equalized are printed in boldface.
31
variables and relationships to which a priori we would have attributed a more stable
nature (see Appendix 4).
Taking this distinction between two groups of countries as our starting-point, we have
extended our analysis through a three-way comparison of Spain, Italy and France. With
this we try to submit the robustness of our model to a more stringent test. Tables 9 and
10 display the results. From Table 9 we will single out only one piece of information: we
can constrain to be equal 55 parameters out of 70, allowing 15 to stay free.
χ2 df χ2/df GFI AGFI NFI CFI RMSEA AIC
SPAIN – ITALY – FRANCE Unconstrained 1262.45 291 4.338 0.959 0.936 0.905 0.925 0.031 1598.45
Measurement weights 1273.96 298 4.275 0.959 0.937 0.904 0.924 0.031 1595.96Structural weights 1337.45 346 3.865 0.957 0.943 0.900 0.923 0.029 1563.45
Table 9. Goodnes of fit statistics for the analysis of invariance of the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Three-way comparisons between Spain, Italy and France.
A quick look at Table 10 lets us identify which are the parameters of the model for
which it is not possible to reject the null hypothesis of inequality among countries. One
of these parameters belongs to the measurement model; more specifically, the loading
of the “courts” on the latent variable “confidence in political institutions” is significantly
minor in Italy. This reflects an imbalance in the contributions of the different institutions
we have included in our model to the definition of this construct, perhaps because
Italian citizens perceive the action of the judiciary power as less partisan than Spanish
and French citizens, something that makes sense after the experience of judicial fight
against partitocrazia during the 1990’s.
Most of the other unconstrained parameters (ten out of fourteen) involve short term and
context-dependent political variables, be it in the origin or in the destination of the
pathway. In all cases, differences are only of magnitude and do not imply change of the
sign of the relationship; and, in general terms, their size is fairly small. Notwithstanding,
even if they are not impressive, some of these differences are noteworthy. Firstly,
political ideology has a non-negligible correlation with political participation both in Italy
and in France (more leftist citizens being more prone to political action), whereas in
Spain – and contrary to our expectations, but in keeping with the result of our previous
regression analyses- we have not found such a relationship. In the second place,
satisfaction with government performance – a paramount predictor of confidence in
32
political institutions in the three countries – has a higher saliency in Spain, especially if
we focus our attention on standardized coefficients. Finally, citizens more interested in
politics seem to have a more negative perception of health and education policies in
Italy and Spain than in France, perhaps reflecting a more critical attitude toward public
affairs.
As we turn to the variables which we have tended to see as more stable and less
subject to temporal fluctuations, there are three path coefficients that cannot be
constrained to equality. The relationship between general life satisfaction and
satisfaction with the state of the national economy is weaker in Italy than in France and
Spain. In France, frequency of informal social contacts is positively related to social
trust to a larger extent than either in Italy or Spain, where this relationship is much
weaker and is not statistically significant unless we merge the samples for both
countries. The relationship between frequency of attendance to religious services and
political ideology changes among countries in different ways depending upon the focus
being put on individual level effects (as measured by non-standardized coefficients) or
on overall contribution to explain variance at the aggregate level (as captured by
standardized coefficients); the individual effect of religious attendance is stronger in
France and Spain than in Italy, while its global impact is larger in France than in the
other countries.
Taking together everything that we have said up to this point, the overall picture we
obtain is one of minor differences among countries within a common general pattern. It
is worth to emphasize that the sign of the significant relationships is always the same in
the three countries and the relative relevance of each block of variables is almost
constant. And, above of all, we have corroborated that the direction of the relationship
between confidence in political institutions and social trust is the same in all three
countries: effects go from the former to the latter.
33
SPAIN ITALY FRANCE Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Estimate Estimate S.E. P Estimate Estimate S.E. P Estimate Religious observance → Political ideology 0.358 0.05 *** 0.093 0.171 0.05 *** 0.126 0.358 0.05 *** 0.198 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.057 0.01 *** 0.071 0.057 0.01 *** 0.080 0.057 0.01 *** 0.057 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.101 0.02 *** 0.086 0.101 0.02 *** 0.076 0.101 0.02 *** 0.053 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.196 0.02 *** 0.164 0.196 0.02 *** 0.153 0.196 0.02 *** 0.112 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.086 0.01 *** 0.106 0.086 0.01 *** 0.127 0.086 0.01 *** 0.095 Informal sociability → Social Trust 0.066 0.03 0.008 0.062 0.066 0.03 0.008 0.066 0.167 0.03 *** 0.172 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.216 0.01 *** 0.229 0.216 0.01 *** 0.258 0.216 0.01 *** 0.295 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.342 0.02 *** 0.316 0.228 0.03 *** 0.246 0.342 0.02 *** 0.411 Satisfaction with life → Social Trust 0.099 0.01 *** 0.112 0.099 0.01 *** 0.127 0.099 0.01 *** 0.178 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.103 0.04 0.009 -0.048 -0.103 0.04 0.009 -0.056 0.039 0.05 0.432 0.020 Political interest → Associational membership 0.263 0.02 *** 0.170 0.263 0.02 *** 0.226 0.263 0.02 *** 0.186 Political interest → Political participation 0.562 0.03 *** 0.294 0.562 0.03 *** 0.381 0.562 0.03 *** 0.316 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.385 0.03 *** 0.177 0.385 0.03 *** 0.216 0.385 0.03 *** 0.200 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.104 0.02 *** 0.092 0.104 0.02 *** 0.071 0.104 0.02 *** 0.085 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.269 0.03 *** 0.206 0.269 0.03 *** 0.165 0.106 0.03 0.002 0.076 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.414 0.03 *** 0.283 0.414 0.03 *** 0.227 0.121 0.03 *** 0.082 Political ideology → Distance party government 0.041 0.01 *** 0.161 0.302 0.02 *** 0.536 0.231 0.02 *** 0.361 Political ideology → Political participation -0.003 0.01 0.637 -0.012 -0.105 0.01 *** -0.158 -0.105 0.01 *** -0.150 Associational membership → Political participation 0.369 0.02 *** 0.299 0.369 0.02 *** 0.291 0.369 0.02 *** 0.293 Associational membership → Social Trust 0.010 0.03 0.690 0.008 0.010 0.03 0.690 0.007 0.010 0.03 0.690 0.009 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.039 0.02 0.098 0.028 0.039 0.02 0.098 0.025 0.039 0.02 0.098 0.028 Political participation → Social Trust 0.092 0.02 *** 0.087 0.092 0.02 *** 0.078 0.092 0.02 *** 0.107 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions 0.049 0.02 0.016 0.043 0.049 0.02 0.016 0.040 0.049 0.02 0.016 0.045 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.198 0.03 *** 0.153 0.256 0.03 *** 0.206 0.153 0.03 *** 0.126 State of welfare policies → Social Trust 0.045 0.02 0.029 0.047 0.045 0.02 0.029 0.048 0.045 0.02 0.029 0.058 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.158 0.02 *** 0.155 0.240 0.03 *** 0.247 0.158 0.02 *** 0.163 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.561 0.02 *** 0.499 0.561 0.02 *** 0.500 0.561 0.02 *** 0.524 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.136 0.02 *** 0.154 0.136 0.02 *** 0.156 0.271 0.02 *** 0.318 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.293 0.03 *** 0.372 0.232 0.02 *** 0.298 0.232 0.02 *** 0.291 Social Trust → Confidence in political institutions 0.043 0.04 0.237 0.040 0.043 0.04 0.237 0.041 0.043 0.04 0.237 0.034 Confidence in political institutions → Social Trust 0.291 0.03 *** 0.315 0.291 0.03 *** 0.301 0.291 0.03 *** 0.371 Social Trust → Trus_1 1.000 0.761 1.000 0.726 1.000 0.643 Social Trust → Trus_2 0.989 0.04 *** 0.750 0.989 0.04 *** 0.723 0.989 0.04 *** 0.616 Social Trust → Trus_3 0.845 0.03 *** 0.642 0.845 0.03 *** 0.641 0.845 0.03 *** 0.521 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.891 0.03 *** 0.690 0.619 0.05 *** 0.455 0.891 0.03 *** 0.667 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.988 0.02 *** 0.778 0.988 0.02 *** 0.811 0.988 0.02 *** 0.833 Confidence in political institutions → Parliament 1.000 0.788 1.000 0.790 1.000 0.785
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest -0.014 0.04 0.728 -0.010 -0.196 0.05 *** -0.125 0.069 0.03 0.043 0.056 res6 ↔ res8 1.158 0.11 *** 0.339 1.343 0.12 *** 0.410 0.975 0.10 *** 0.289
R2 Estimate Estimate Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 0.000 0.000 Satisfaction with life 0.034 0.029 0.015 Political ideology 0.009 0.016 0.039 Distance party government 0.026 0.288 0.131 Associational membership 0.045 0.069 0.048 Political participation 0.206 0.305 0.242 State of welfare policies 0.063 0.075 0.095 Satisfaction economy 0.142 0.088 0.175 Satisfaction government 0.479 0.482 0.355 Confidence in political institutions 0.387 0.415 0.475 Social_Trust 0.182 0.180 0.315 Table 10. Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and Confidence in political institutions. Comparison: Spain, Italy and France.
34
4. CONCLUSIONS.
This paper was triggered off by the awkwardness we felt because of the existence of a
gap between two different lines of research: on the one side, literature on the factors
which contribute to generate social trust, and, on the other side, research on the
determinants of confidence in public institutions. This gap is especially remarkable
given the emphasis which has been recently put on the major role institutions play in
the creation of social trust. Advocates of so-called institutional approach to social
capital have pointed to several ways through which public institutions can generate
social trust as a by-product of their ordinary working (Levi, 1998; Stolle, 2002;
Rothstein & Stolle, 2002; Rothstein, 2005; Herreros, 2004). However, they have not
paid enough attention to the mediating role of confidence in institutions in this process,
derived from the fact that in order to be able to develop trust, institutions should be
perceived as trustworthy. For their part, scholars who have intended to light the factors
that determine institutional confidence (Pharr and Putnam, 2000; Denters et al, 2007)
have not systematically related them to the emergence of social trust.
Our aim has been to contribute to fill this gap by elucidating the existing links between
social trust and institutional confidence as well as among their respective determinants.
Now, undertaking this task required a previous clarification of the concept and
dimensionality of confidence in public institutions. For this reason, we started our
empirical analysis studying the dimensionality of institutional confidence. On the basis
of the resulting distinction between different types of institutions, we proceeded to an
analysis of some of the determinants of institutional confidence. Firstly, through a
regression analysis limited to data on Spain. Later, through the specification of a causal
model which we applied to Spanish data and replicated for data from five more
European countries. This causal model also allowed us to disentangle the relationship
between social trust and institutional confidence.
Our analyses produced five blocks of conclusions.
1. On the dimensionality of confidence in public institutions.
In Spain, even with some reservations, the preferred solution reduces institutional
confidence to two factors. On the one hand, confidence in social order institutions,
which encompasses attitudes towards three institutions: the army, the police and the
35
church. On the other hand, confidence in political institutions; under this heading are
subsumed government, parliament, political parties, courts, civil service, newspapers
and TV. This low dimensionality of institutional confidence is present all along a time-
period through which Spain suffered dramatic political and social changes. More
specifically, we find it both in a moment of early development of democracy and after a
relatively long period of working of democracy. Hence, it does not seem that low
dimensionality of political confidence should be seen as a transient phenomenon, but
rather as a stable feature of the structure of Spaniards’ political attitudes.
2. On the determinants of confidence in social order institutions.
Main determinants of interpersonal variation in confidence in social order institutions
are stable individual orientations and beliefs, such as religion and ideology, and
partisan allegiances. Indeed, being an observant Catholic, placing oneself in the right
of the ideology scale, and being a voter of the conservative Popular Party is strongly
and consistently correlated with more confidence in social order institutions. Contextual
changes do not seem to influence confidence in this kind of institutions, as there is no
significant variation of the observed effects over time. This is coherent with the
emphasis on issues of social order and stability that has been traditionally distinctive of
conservative ideologies.
3. On the determinants of confidence in political institutions.
Both the regression analysis and the structural equation model give us important
information about the determinants of confidence in political institutions in Spain. They
concur in bringing out some common findings. On the one hand, variation in confidence
in political institutions is strongly contingent upon short-term factors, even if in each
analysis different indicators of this kind of factors were available. Variables such as
valuation of the economic situation, satisfaction with government and evaluation of the
state of welfare policies proved to be salient. On the other hand, even ideational and
attitudinal variables with a more unchanging character (ideology, religion, party
allegiances) affect confidence in political institutions in a different way depending on
context, specially defined by the colour of the party in office. This means that
confidence in political institutions relies heavily on a partisan bias, which is in itself a
stable explanatory factor. However, it also means that individuals will be prone to
change their confidence in this kind of institutions according to their proximity to the
political actors who are in charge of running them. Finally, there is only one stable
36
orientation that displays consistency in its effects across different years and datasets:
political interest, which has a positive impact on confidence in political institutions.
The structural equation model we built permits us to deep in our conclusions, adding
some relevant elements to the previous picture. Firstly, general life satisfaction has a
not negligible effect on confidence in political institutions; this points towards the
convenience to incorporate in future analysis more information items on personality
traits. Secondly, according to our results, some variables which have been given great
saliency in the literature –such as political participation, civic engagement and
involvement in informal social networks- have no significant impact on confidence in
political institutions. This might be due to shortcomings in the measures we have used
or reflect the genuine reality.
4. On cross-national regularities and variations of the determinants of confidence in political institutions.
Our analysis has shown that there is a high degree of commonality among Spain, Italy
and France regarding the causal structure specified by our model, while Germany,
Sweden and the United Kingdom differ more sharply from those countries. All the
differences we have identified within the first group of countries have to do with highly
contextual political variables, while the divergence between both groups also affects to
variables and relationships to which a priori we would have attributed a more stable
nature, including the effects of some of the variables that have received more attention
in the literature, such as associational membership. These findings call for a more
detailed comparative analysis, encompassing a larger number of countries, in order to
confirm, modify or discard this pattern of cross-national variation.
5. On the relationship between confidence in political institutions and social trust.
One of our main goals in this paper was to clarify the relationship between confidence
in political institutions and social trust, because, although it has been argued that
institutions promote social trust, the existence of an influence in the reverse direction
has been also stated. The results of our structural equation model suggest that the
causal connection is stronger –and in some cases, unique- from confidence in
institutions towards social trust. In Spain, Italy and France, the relationship is
unidirectional. In Sweden, United Kingdom and Germany there are effects in both
37
directions, but they are always more powerful from political to social trust. Indeed,
confidence in institutions is the best single predictor of social trust among the variables
included in our model in all countries. These results allow us to specify the direction of
the causal relationship between these two variables, corroborating the expectation that
institutional confidence is a key factor in the generation of social trust, whereas the
opposite is less true. This confers great relevance to our previous elucidation of the
factors that promote or inhibit confidence in institutions.
This final finding reinforces one of the core propositions of the institutional approach:
the relevance of institutions in the creation of social trust. However, the preponderance
of short-term factors in the explanation of the confidence in political institutions, shown
by previous analyses, may qualify the implications of that statement: variations of social
trust would be more influenced by immediate contextual conditions than it is usually
thought. To put it in a nutshell: what matters in the formation of social trust is not only
what institutions do and how they are, but also how they are perceived and who runs
them; and governments and social perceptions are more changing than the nature of
public institutions.
38
5. REFERENCES
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6. APPENDIXES.
42
APPENDIX 1: VARIABLES. A1.1. Variables and questions in Latinobarometer used in the analysis.
Variable Question Original Measure
Confidence in political institutions Confidence in country's Parliament 1 to 4
(Additive index: 7 - 28 ) Confidence in Political Parties 1 to 4
Confidence in Government 1 to 4
Confidence in Civil Service 1 to 4
Confidence in the Courts 1 to 4
Confidence in Newspapers 1 to 4
Confidence in TV 1 to 4 Confidence in social order institutions
Confidence in the Army 1 to 4
(Additive index: 3 - 12) Confidence in the Police 1 to 4
Confidence in the Church 1 to 4
Interest in politics How interested in politics 1 to 4
Exposure to political information Exposure to political information at TV 1 to 7
Exposure to political information to the Radio 1 to 7
Exposure to political information in Newspaper 1 to 7 Valuation of the economic situation
How is the situation of the economy valued 0 to 5
Political ideology Placement on left right scale 0 to 10 Vote in last national elections (PP, PSOE, IU, other, did not vote, no information)
Which party was voted in last national elections 18 cat.
Religion Religious beliefs 6 cat. (Catholic, very observant; Catholic, observant; Catholic, not very observant; Catholic, not at all observant; Another religion; Not religious; No information)
Religious observance 1 to 4
Age How old Education (Higher education, Secondary education, Primary education, Less than primary education, No information)
Higher level of education achieved
Sex
43
A1.2. Variables and questions in ESS used in the analysis.
Variable Question MeasureSocial trust Most people can be trusted or you can't be too careful 0 to 10
Most people try to take advantage of you, or try to be fair 0 to 10
Most of the time people helpful or mostly looking out for themselves 0 to 10
Institutional confidence Trust in country's parliament 0 to 10
Trust in the legal system 0 to 10
Trust in politicians 0 to 10
Satisfaction with life How satisfied with life as a whole 0 to 10
Interest in politics How interested in politics 1 to 4
Satisfaction with the economy How satisfied with present state of economy in country 0 to 10 Satisfaction with the government How satisfied with the national government 0 to 10
Evaluation of Welfare politics State of education in country nowadays 0 to 10
(Mean index) State of health services in country nowadays 0 to 10
Informal sociability How often socially meet with friends, relatives or colleagues 0 to 7
Political participation Worked in political party or action group last 12 months yes - no
(Additive index) Worked in another organisation or association last 12 months yes - no
Signed petition last 12 months yes - no
Taken part in lawful public demonstration last 12 months yes - no
Boycotted certain products last 12 months yes - no
Bought product for political/ethical/environment reason last 12 months yes - no
Donated money to political organisation or group last 12 months yes - no
Participated illegal protest activities last 12 months yes - no
Formal sociability Sports/outdoor activity club, last 12 months: member yes - no
(Additive index) Cultural /hobby activity organisation, last 12 months: member yes - no
Trade union, last 12 months: member yes - no
Business/profession/farmers organisation, last 12 months: member yes - no
Consumer/automobile organisation, last 12 months: member yes - no
Humanitarian organisation etc., last 12 months: member yes - no
Environmental/peace/animal organisation, last 12 months: member yes - no
Religious/church organisation, last 12 months: member yes - no
Political party, last 12 months: member yes - no
Science/education/teacher organisation, last 12 months: member yes - no
Social club etc., last 12 months: member yes - no
Other voluntary organisation, last 12 months: member yes - no
Political ideology Self – placement on left right scale 0 to 10
Proximity of party in government Which party feel closer to
(Constructed variable: -4 to +4) Degree of proximity 1 to 4 Frequency of attendance to religious services
How often attend religious services apart from special occasions 0 to 7
44
APPENDIX 2: DISTRIBUTION OF THE VARIABLES OF CONFIDENCE IN PARTICULAR INSTITUTIONS IN THE 1980-2006 DATA SET. A2.1. Means and standard deviations of the items of institutional confidence included in survey data.
1980 19901 19902 19963 20013 20053 Confidence N Mean Dev. N Mean Dev. N Mean Dev. N Mean Dev. N Mean Dev. N Mean Dev.
Political parties 1196 2.45 0.69 2868 20.56 33.61 2481 3.24 1.72 2496 2.87 1.52 3033 2.99 1.26 Parliament 2145 2.49 0.87 1196 2.91 0.85 2868 26.56 36.53 2481 3.09 2.06 2496 2.71 1.80 3033 2.86 1.92 Government 1196 2.90 0.78 2481 2.98 1.72 2496 2.68 1.54 3033 2.73 1.42 Civil Service 2145 2.32 0.87 1196 2.88 0.82 2481 3.22 1.97 2496 2.74 1.56 3033 2.78 1.57 Courts 2145 2.52 0.84 1196 2.58 0.89 2868 24.45 35.74 2481 3.08 1.89 2496 2.87 1.51 3033 2.79 1.54 Army 2145 2.74 0.94 1196 2.90 0.88 2868 20.84 33.56 2481 2.71 1.75 2496 2.88 1.72 3033 2.64 1.64 Police 2145 2.73 0.87 1196 3.04 0.81 2481 2.48 1.58 2496 2.39 1.46 3033 2.32 1.37 Church 2145 2.57 1.04 1196 2.66 1.02 2868 18.82 31.28 2481 2.63 1.46 2496 2.69 1.40 3033 2.84 1.37 Newspapers 2145 2.45 0.80 1196 2.59 0.81 2868 22.47 33.65 2481 2.93 1.71 2496 2.63 1.57 3033 2.65 1.53 T. V. 2481 2.89 1.47 2496 2.73 1.28 3033 2.90 1.16
1World Values Survey; 2 Barometer (CIS); 3 Latinobarometer (CIS).
45
APPENDIX 3: CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS. REGRESSION WEIGHTS AND COVARIANCES. A3.1. Year 1980.
MODEL A MODEL B Estim S.E. P St. Estim Estim S.E. P St. Estim
Regression Weights Regression Weights Political → Parties 1 Political → Parties 1,000 ,754 Neutral → Army 1,286 0,04 *** ,79 Social Order → Army 1,000 ,823 Neutral → Police 1,214 0,038 *** ,803 Social Order → Police ,922 ,024 *** ,817 Neutral → Church 1,305 0,044 *** ,729 Political → Church ,979 ,028 *** ,732 Control → Civil Service 1 ,773 Political → Civil Service 1,015 ,031 *** ,765 Neutral → Courts 1 ,691 Political → Courts ,992 ,030 *** ,773 Control → Newspapers 0,572 0,027 *** ,482 Political → Newspapers ,631 ,028 *** ,519 Covariances Covariances Political ↔ Neutral 0,333 0,016 *** ,853 Political ↔ Social Order ,388 ,018 *** ,761 Political ↔ Control 0,464 0,019 *** ,794 Neutral ↔ Control 0,333 0,016 *** ,853
A3.2. Year 1990 (WVS).
MODEL A MODEL B Estim S.E. P St. Estim Estim S.E. P St. Estim
Regression Weights Regression Weights Political → Parties 1 ,357 Political → Parties 1,000 ,354 Political → Parliament 2,823 0,244 *** ,831 Political → Parliament 2,828 ,244 *** ,824 Political → Government 1,335 0,142 *** ,42 Political → Government 1,333 ,143 *** ,416 Neutral → Army 0,638 0,056 *** ,371 Social Order → Army 1,000 ,378 Neutral → Police 1,205 0,061 *** ,763 Social Order → Police 1,801 ,141 *** ,742 Neutral → Church 0,497 0,063 *** ,249 Political → Church ,794 ,106 *** ,258 Control → Civil Service 1 ,701 Political → Civil Service 2,173 ,197 *** ,655 Neutral → Courts 1 ,575 Political → Courts 2,136 ,200 *** ,589 Control → Newspapers 0,717 0,048 *** ,508 Political → Newspapers 1,546 ,157 *** ,471 Covariances Covariances Political ↔ Neutral 0,134 0,014 *** 1,052 Political ↔ Social Order ,088 ,010 *** 1,078 Political ↔ Control 0,126 0,013 *** ,885 Neutral ↔ Control 0,294 0,02 *** 1,002
46
A3.3. Year 1990 (Barometer code number 1.871).
MODEL A MODEL B Estim S.E. P St. Estim Estim S.E. P St. Estim
Regression Weights Regression Weights Political → Parties 1 ,878 Political → Parties 1,000 ,881 Political → Parliament 1,022 0,017 *** ,825 Political → Parliament 1,025 ,017 *** ,832 Neutral → Army 1,009 0,016 *** ,904 Social Order → Army 1,000 ,921 Neutral → Church 0,918 0,015 *** ,881 Political → Church ,907 ,012 *** ,896 Neutral → Courts 1 ,841 Political → Courts 1,024 ,016 *** ,849 Control → Newspapers 1 Political → Newspapers 1,026 ,014 *** ,903
Covariances Covariances Political ↔ Neutral 874,377 27,994 *** ,987 Political ↔ Social Order 870,540 26,388 *** ,951 Political ↔ Control 901,6 26,922 *** ,908 Neutral ↔ Control 892,59 27,652 *** ,883
A3.4. Year 1996.
MODEL A MODEL B Estim S.E. P St. Estim Estim S.E. P St. Estim
Regression Weights Regression Weights Political → Parties 1 ,819 Political → Parties 1,000 ,797 Political → Parliament 1,135 0,028 *** ,774 Political → Parliament 1,149 ,029 *** ,761 Political → Government 0,876 0,023 *** ,716 Political → Government ,890 ,024 *** ,707 Neutral → Army 0,87 0,031 *** ,648 Social Order → Army 1,000 ,701 Neutral → Police 0,86 0,028 *** ,71 Social Order → Police ,997 ,033 *** ,775 Neutral → Church 0,501 0,025 *** ,448 Political → Church ,613 ,028 *** ,516 Control → Civil Service 1 ,749 Political → Civil Service 1,069 ,027 *** ,741 Neutral → Courts 1 ,69 Political → Courts ,954 ,027 *** ,691 Control → Newspapers 0,82 0,024 *** ,708 Political → Newspapers ,871 ,024 *** ,696 Control → T. V. 0,647 0,021 *** ,65 Political → T. V. ,680 ,021 *** ,634
Covariances Covariances Political ↔ Neutral 1,608 0,068 *** ,878 Political ↔ Social Order 1,332 ,060 *** 794 Political ↔ Control 1,949 0,076 *** ,939 Neutral ↔ Control 1,761 0,076 *** ,916
47
A3.5. Year 2001.
MODEL A MODEL B Estim S.E. P St. Estim Estim S.E. P St. Estim
Regression Weights Regression Weights Political → Parties 1 ,789 Political → Parties 1,000 ,772 Political → Parliament 1,166 0,029 *** ,773 Political → Parliament 1,163 ,030 *** ,754 Political → Government 1,009 0,025 *** ,786 Political → Government 1,018 ,026 *** ,775 Neutral → Army 1,007 0,028 *** ,7 Social Order → Army 1,000 ,719 Neutral → Police 0,962 0,024 *** ,789 Social Order → Police ,963 ,027 *** ,816 Neutral → Church 0,658 0,024 *** ,561 Political → Church ,670 ,025 *** ,590 Control → Civil Service 1 ,719 Political → Civil Service ,756 ,027 *** ,567 Neutral → Courts 1 ,79 Political → Courts 1,007 ,025 *** ,779 Control → Newspapers 0,995 0,035 *** ,71 Political → Newspapers ,681 ,027 *** ,507 Control → T. V. 0,839 0,029 *** ,734 Political → T. V. ,535 ,022 *** ,488
Covariances Covariances Political ↔ Neutral 1,314 0,051 *** ,921 Political ↔ Social Order 1,283 ,054 *** ,889 Political ↔ Control 0,849 0,043 *** ,634 Neutral ↔ Control 0,846 0,043 *** ,633
A3.6. Year 2005.
MODEL A MODEL B Estim S.E. P St. Estim Estim S.E. P St. Estim
Regression Weights Regression Weights Political → Parties 1 ,692 Political → Parties 1,000 ,693 Political → Parliament 1,425 0,045 *** ,655 Political → Parliament 1,419 ,045 *** ,654 Political → Government 1,218 0,034 *** ,751 Political → Government 1,204 ,034 *** ,743 Neutral → Army 1,062 0,036 *** ,683 Social Order → Army 1,000 ,726 Neutral → Police 0,934 0,031 *** ,728 Social Order → Police ,823 ,030 *** ,725 Neutral → Church 0,601 0,028 *** ,463 Political → Church ,582 ,026 *** ,506 Control → Civil Service 1 ,732 Political → Civil Service 1,326 ,037 *** ,738 Neutral → Courts 1 ,672 Political → Courts 1,032 ,036 *** ,587 Control → Newspapers 0,781 0,026 *** ,59 Political → Newspapers 1,038 ,035 *** ,596 Control → T. V. 0,547 0,019 *** ,548 Political → T. V. ,717 ,027 *** ,546
Covariances Covariances Political ↔ Neutral 0,605 0,03 *** ,656 Political ↔ Social Order ,654 ,032 *** ,628 Political ↔ Control 1,048 0,04 *** 1,022 Neutral ↔ Control 0,83 0,04 *** ,685
48
APPENDIX 4: STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODEL. REGRESSION WEIGHTS AND COVARIANCES. A.4.1 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. France. Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology 0.362 0.05 *** 0.201 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.091 0.03 *** 0.091 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.058 0.05 0.264 0.031 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.168 0.05 *** 0.096 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.106 0.02 *** 0.115 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.185 0.03 *** 0.188 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.236 0.02 *** 0.321 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.340 0.02 *** 0.408 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.082 0.02 *** 0.145 Political interest → Associational membership 0.297 0.04 *** 0.208 Political interest → State of welfare policies 0.036 0.05 0.473 0.018 Political interest → Political participation 0.548 0.04 *** 0.303 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.380 0.05 *** 0.199 Political ideology → Distance party government 0.231 0.02 *** 0.361 Political ideology → Political participation -0.113 0.02 *** -0.160 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.057 0.03 0.073 0.047 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.093 0.04 0.007 0.067 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.124 0.03 *** 0.084 Associational membership → Political participation 0.424 0.03 *** 0.334 Associational membership → Social trust 0.033 0.04 0.385 0.031 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.055 0.04 0.109 0.041 Political participation → Social trust 0.062 0.03 0.039 0.074 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions 0.070 0.03 0.015 0.067 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.164 0.03 *** 0.137 State of welfare policies → Social trust 0.062 0.03 0.038 0.080 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.138 0.03 *** 0.144 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.536 0.03 *** 0.505 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.264 0.03 *** 0.311 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.238 0.02 *** 0.298
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions 0.071 0.06 0.252 0.057 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.264 0.05 *** 0.330
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.650 Social trust → Trust_2 0.897 0.07 *** 0.575 Social trust → Trust_3 0.861 0.07 *** 0.535 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.893 0.04 *** 0.663 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 1.019 0.04 *** 0.842 Confidence in political institutions → Parlamient 1.000 0.780
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest 0.069 0.03 0.043 0.056 res6 ↔ res8 0.974 0.10 *** 0.289
R2 Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 Satisfaction with life 0.010 Political ideology 0.040 Distance party government 0.131 Associational membership 0.067 Political participation 0.269 State of welfare policies 0.106 Satisfaction economy 0.171 Satisfaction government 0.341 Confidence in political institutions 0.487 Social trust 0.286
49
A.4.2 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Germany. Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology -0.034 0.13 0.791 -0.005 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.195 0.02 *** 0.173 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.206 0.03 *** 0.120 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.237 0.03 *** 0.146 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.102 0.02 *** 0.095 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.070 0.02 0.004 0.064 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.191 0.02 *** 0.223 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.228 0.02 *** 0.256 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.162 0.02 *** 0.240 Political interest → Associational membership 0.427 0.03 *** 0.240 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.256 0.04 *** -0.111 Political interest → Political participation 0.448 0.04 *** 0.231 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.506 0.04 *** 0.230 Political ideology → Distance party government -0.010 0.00 0.004 -0.058 Political ideology → Political participation -0.001 0.00 0.792 -0.005 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.073 0.03 0.003 0.057 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.164 0.03 *** 0.123 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.245 0.02 *** 0.181 Associational membership → Political participation 0.352 0.02 *** 0.323 Associational membership → Social trust 0.024 0.03 0.337 0.023 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.120 0.02 *** 0.097 Political participation → Social trust 0.072 0.02 0.001 0.076 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions -0.037 0.02 0.085 -0.033 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.198 0.02 *** 0.187 State of welfare policies → Social trust 0.072 0.02 *** 0.092 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.172 0.02 *** 0.180 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.496 0.02 *** 0.488 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.165 0.02 *** 0.181 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.325 0.02 *** 0.362
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions 0.137 0.04 *** 0.113 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.228 0.03 *** 0.275
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.657 Social trust → Trust_2 0.979 0.04 *** 0.697 Social trust → Trust_3 0.805 0.04 *** 0.595 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.740 0.03 *** 0.569 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.957 0.02 *** 0.843 Confidence in political institutions → Parlamient 1.000 0.804
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest 0.010 0.02 0.644 0.009 res6 ↔ res8 1.228 0.08 *** 0.333
R2 Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 Satisfaction with life 0.036 Political ideology 0.000 Distance party government 0.003 Associational membership 0.097 Political participation 0.194 State of welfare policies 0.065 Satisfaction economy 0.081 Satisfaction government 0.399 Confidence in political institutions 0.491 Social trust 0.267
50
A.4.3 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Italy.
Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology 0.171 0.05 *** 0.126 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.036 0.02 0.119 0.051 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.119 0.04 0.007 0.089 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.158 0.04 *** 0.123 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.083 0.02 *** 0.123 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.059 0.04 0.088 0.061 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.177 0.03 *** 0.214 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.211 0.03 *** 0.229 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.112 0.03 *** 0.148 Political interest → Associational membership 0.257 0.04 *** 0.222 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.115 0.05 0.032 -0.063 Political interest → Political participation 0.570 0.04 *** 0.394 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.383 0.06 *** 0.214 Political ideology → Distance party government 0.302 0.02 *** 0.536 Political ideology → Political participation -0.093 0.02 *** -0.143 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.108 0.05 0.021 0.075 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.249 0.05 *** 0.154 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.500 0.04 *** 0.272 Associational membership → Political participation 0.313 0.04 *** 0.251 Associational membership → Social trust 0.042 0.05 0.442 0.029 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.016 0.05 0.756 0.010 Political participation → Social trust 0.079 0.05 0.091 0.069 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions 0.128 0.05 0.005 0.103 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.249 0.03 *** 0.196 State of welfare policies → Social trust 0.057 0.05 0.218 0.062 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.250 0.04 *** 0.253 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.565 0.03 *** 0.496 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.141 0.04 *** 0.160 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.226 0.03 *** 0.291
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions 0.025 0.08 0.748 0.023 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.330 0.08 *** 0.355
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.703 Social trust → Trust_2 1.134 0.07 *** 0.775 Social trust → Trust_3 0.865 0.06 *** 0.634 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.622 0.05 *** 0.459 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.981 0.05 *** 0.809 Confidence in political institutions → Parlamient 1.000 0.791
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest -0.196 0.05 *** -0.125 res6 ↔ res8 1.340 0.12 *** 0.410
R2 Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 Satisfaction with life 0.023 Political ideology 0.016 Distance party government 0.288 Associational membership 0.064 Political participation 0.283 State of welfare policies 0.056 Satisfaction economy 0.077 Satisfaction government 0.494 Confidence in political institutions 0.417 Social trust 0.228
51
A.4.4 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Sweden.
Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology 0.629 0.10 *** 0.150 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.313 0.04 *** 0.209 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.122 0.04 0.001 0.082 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.125 0.03 *** 0.100 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.009 0.03 0.757 0.007 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.037 0.03 0.230 0.031 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.201 0.03 *** 0.181 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.324 0.03 *** 0.274 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.184 0.03 *** 0.193 Political interest → Associational membership 0.416 0.05 *** 0.195 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.011 0.06 0.848 -0.004 Political interest → Political participation 0.578 0.05 *** 0.277 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.483 0.05 *** 0.210 Political ideology → Distance party government -0.072 0.01 *** -0.184 Political ideology → Political participation -0.019 0.01 0.013 -0.056 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.049 0.03 0.053 0.048 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.091 0.03 *** 0.084 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.213 0.02 *** 0.194 Associational membership → Political participation 0.303 0.02 *** 0.309 Associational membership → Social trust 0.084 0.03 0.002 0.088 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.105 0.02 *** 0.098 Political participation → Social trust 0.027 0.03 0.322 0.028 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions 0.021 0.03 0.390 0.019 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.206 0.02 *** 0.191 State of welfare policies → Social trust 0.080 0.03 0.002 0.094 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.139 0.02 *** 0.142 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.453 0.02 *** 0.447 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.036 0.02 0.098 0.040 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.499 0.02 *** 0.554
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions 0.089 0.05 0.048 0.078 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.368 0.04 *** 0.418
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.735 Social trust → Trust_2 0.873 0.04 *** 0.706 Social trust → Trust_3 0.702 0.04 *** 0.537 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.762 0.03 *** 0.618 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.971 0.03 *** 0.855 Confidence in political institutions → Parlamient 1.000 0.816
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest 0.069 0.02 0.002 0.079 res6 ↔ res8 1.154 0.09 *** 0.337
R2 Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 Satisfaction with life 0.017 Political ideology 0.022 Distance party government 0.034 Associational membership 0.088 Political participation 0.209 State of welfare policies 0.035 Satisfaction economy 0.082 Satisfaction government 0.356 Confidence in political institutions 0.562 Social trust 0.355
52
A.4.5 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. United Kingdom.
Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology 0.118 0.04 *** 0.076 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.207 0.02 *** 0.202 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.055 0.03 0.079 0.041 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.079 0.03 0.019 0.054 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.057 0.02 0.017 0.052 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.013 0.03 0.638 0.011 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.222 0.02 *** 0.238 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.311 0.02 *** 0.309 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.133 0.02 *** 0.176 Political interest → Associational membership 0.424 0.04 *** 0.237 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.191 0.05 *** -0.087 Political interest → Political participation 0.507 0.04 *** 0.290 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.385 0.05 *** 0.172 Political ideology → Distance party government -0.137 0.02 *** -0.189 Political ideology → Political participation -0.036 0.01 0.005 -0.056 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.124 0.03 *** 0.110 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.177 0.03 *** 0.145 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.245 0.02 *** 0.183 Associational membership → Political participation 0.340 0.02 *** 0.346 Associational membership → Social trust 0.075 0.03 0.006 0.075 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.069 0.03 0.008 0.055 Political participation → Social trust 0.086 0.03 0.002 0.084 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions 0.001 0.03 0.962 0.001 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.272 0.02 *** 0.229 State of welfare policies → Social trust 0.132 0.03 *** 0.162 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.162 0.02 *** 0.159 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.540 0.02 *** 0.493 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.020 0.02 0.362 0.021 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.487 0.02 *** 0.568
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions 0.100 0.04 0.024 0.080 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.224 0.04 *** 0.280
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.722 Social trust → Trust_2 0.969 0.04 *** 0.735 Social trust → Trust_3 0.806 0.04 *** 0.624 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.704 0.03 *** 0.581 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.948 0.02 *** 0.860 Confidence in political institutions → Parlamient 1.000 0.853
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest 0.163 0.03 *** 0.120 res6 ↔ res8 1.222 0.09 *** 0.331
R2 Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 Satisfaction with life 0.005 Political ideology 0.006 Distance party government 0.036 Associational membership 0.111 Political participation 0.258 State of welfare policies 0.076 Satisfaction economy 0.116 Satisfaction government 0.452 Confidence in political institutions 0.541 Social trust 0.266
53
A.4.6 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Comparison between Spain and France
SPAIN FRANCE Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology 0.358 0.05 *** 0.093 0.358 0.05 *** 0.198 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.069 0.02 *** 0.086 0.069 0.02 *** 0.069 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.093 0.03 0.001 0.079 0.093 0.03 0.001 0.048 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.213 0.03 *** 0.178 0.213 0.03 *** 0.122 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.088 0.02 *** 0.107 0.088 0.02 *** 0.096 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.061 0.03 0.073 0.057 0.176 0.03 *** 0.177 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.229 0.02 *** 0.243 0.229 0.02 *** 0.312 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.347 0.02 *** 0.320 0.347 0.02 *** 0.415 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.098 0.02 *** 0.109 0.098 0.02 *** 0.172 Political interest → Associational membership 0.264 0.03 *** 0.170 0.264 0.03 *** 0.187 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.013 0.04 0.732 -0.006 -0.013 0.04 0.732 -0.006 Political interest → Political participation 0.560 0.03 *** 0.292 0.560 0.03 *** 0.313 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.376 0.04 *** 0.176 0.376 0.04 *** 0.192 Political ideology → Distance party government 0.041 0.01 *** 0.161 0.231 0.02 *** 0.361 Political ideology → Political participation -0.003 0.01 0.656 -0.012 -0.114 0.02 *** -0.162 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.103 0.02 *** 0.091 0.103 0.02 *** 0.084 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.278 0.03 *** 0.213 0.106 0.03 0.002 0.076 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.374 0.03 *** 0.259 0.119 0.03 *** 0.079 Associational membership → Political participation 0.390 0.02 *** 0.315 0.390 0.02 *** 0.308 Associational membership → Social trust 0.002 0.03 0.943 0.002 0.002 0.03 0.943 0.002 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.043 0.03 0.106 0.031 0.043 0.03 0.106 0.031 Political participation → Social trust 0.095 0.02 *** 0.089 0.095 0.02 *** 0.110 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions -0.052 0.03 0.107 -0.047 0.082 0.03 0.004 0.074 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.178 0.02 *** 0.140 0.178 0.02 *** 0.146 State of welfare policies → Social trust 0.037 0.02 0.108 0.039 0.037 0.02 0.108 0.048 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.155 0.02 *** 0.156 0.155 0.02 *** 0.158 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.560 0.02 *** 0.507 0.560 0.02 *** 0.521 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.164 0.03 *** 0.190 0.259 0.02 *** 0.299 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.258 0.02 *** 0.330 0.258 0.02 *** 0.321
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions 0.042 0.04 0.325 0.040 0.042 0.04 0.325 0.033 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.286 0.04 *** 0.298 0.286 0.04 *** 0.363
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.772 1.000 0.655 Social trust → Trust_2 0.928 0.04 *** 0.726 0.928 0.04 *** 0.595 Social trust → Trust_3 0.836 0.04 *** 0.645 0.836 0.04 *** 0.525 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.893 0.03 *** 0.683 0.893 0.03 *** 0.674 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.987 0.03 *** 0.770 0.987 0.03 *** 0.836 Confidence in political institutions → Parliament 1.000 0.782 1.000 0.790
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest -0.014 0.04 0.728 -0.010 0.069 0.03 0.043 0.056 res6 ↔ res8 1.144 0.11 *** 0.336 0.976 0.10 *** 0.289
R2 Estimate Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 0.000 Political ideology 0.009 0.039 Distance party government 0.026 0.131 Associational membership 0.047 0.050 Political participation 0.216 0.254 State of welfare policies 0.068 0.105 Satisfaction economy 0.147 0.179 Satisfaction government 0.464 0.365 Satisfaction with life 0.038 0.017 Confidence in political institutions 0.365 0.490 Social trust 0.161 0.304
54
A.4.7 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Comparison between Spain and Germany
SPAIN GERMANY Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology 0.337 0.113 0.003 0.088 -0.034 0.13 0.791 -0.005 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.051 0.023 0.026 0.064 0.196 0.02 *** 0.173 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.158 0.024 *** 0.132 0.158 0.02 *** 0.092 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.240 0.023 *** 0.198 0.240 0.02 *** 0.148 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.089 0.015 *** 0.109 0.089 0.02 *** 0.083 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.064 0.02 0.001 0.058 0.064 0.02 0.001 0.058 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.199 0.014 *** 0.214 0.199 0.01 *** 0.231 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.352 0.028 *** 0.326 0.231 0.02 *** 0.259 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.154 0.014 *** 0.171 0.154 0.01 *** 0.227 Political interest → Associational membership 0.215 0.044 *** 0.139 0.426 0.03 *** 0.240 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.073 0.057 0.201 -0.034 -0.258 0.04 *** -0.111 Political interest → Political participation 0.489 0.029 *** 0.261 0.489 0.03 *** 0.251 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.352 0.061 *** 0.161 0.515 0.04 *** 0.232 Political ideology → Distance party government 0.041 0.007 *** 0.161 -0.010 0.00 0.004 -0.058 Political ideology → Political participation -0.001 0.003 0.695 -0.005 -0.001 0.00 0.695 -0.006 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.150 0.032 *** 0.132 0.072 0.03 0.003 0.056 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.295 0.035 *** 0.224 0.164 0.03 *** 0.123 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.383 0.031 *** 0.268 0.241 0.02 *** 0.175 Associational membership → Political participation 0.350 0.017 *** 0.288 0.350 0.02 *** 0.319 Associational membership → Social trust 0.004 0.022 0.859 0.003 0.004 0.02 0.859 0.004 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.015 0.039 0.708 0.010 0.127 0.02 *** 0.102 Political participation → Social trust 0.091 0.019 *** 0.083 0.091 0.02 *** 0.098 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions -0.038 0.019 0.042 -0.033 -0.038 0.02 0.042 -0.034 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.196 0.015 *** 0.155 0.196 0.02 *** 0.183 State of welfare policies → Social trust 0.051 0.019 0.006 0.053 0.051 0.02 0.006 0.065 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.178 0.017 *** 0.174 0.178 0.02 *** 0.186 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.523 0.014 *** 0.480 0.523 0.01 *** 0.507 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.163 0.017 *** 0.185 0.163 0.02 *** 0.177 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.266 0.024 *** 0.329 0.335 0.02 *** 0.376
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions 0.082 0.034 0.015 0.078 0.082 0.03 0.015 0.068 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.264 0.029 *** 0.279 0.264 0.03 *** 0.321
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.773 1.000 0.657 Social trust → Trust_2 0.967 0.033 *** 0.749 0.967 0.03 *** 0.690 Social trust → Trust_3 0.814 0.029 *** 0.636 0.814 0.03 *** 0.600 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.892 0.038 *** 0.693 0.739 0.03 *** 0.571 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.953 0.021 *** 0.763 0.953 0.02 *** 0.843 Confidence in political institutions → Parliament 1.000 0.792 1.000 0.806
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Estimate S.E. P Correlat. rel_frec int_1_2 -0.014 0.041 0.728 -0.010 0.010 0.02 0.644 0.009 res6 res8 1.151 0.106 *** 0.338 1.228 0.08 *** 0.333
R2 Estimate Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 0.000 Political ideology 0.008 0.000 Distance party government 0.026 0.003 Associational membership 0.035 0.095 Political participation 0.172 0.204 State of welfare policies 0.065 0.069 Satisfaction economy 0.157 0.082 Satisfaction government 0.454 0.416 Satisfaction with life 0.057 0.030 Confidence in political institutions 0.393 0.478 Social trust 0.196 0.265
55
A.4.8 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Comparison between Spain and Italy
SPAIN ITALY Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology 0.194 0.04 *** 0.050 0.194 0.04 *** 0.142 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.042 0.02 0.009 0.053 0.042 0.02 0.009 0.060 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.114 0.03 *** 0.096 0.114 0.03 *** 0.084 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.206 0.03 *** 0.171 0.206 0.03 *** 0.160 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.078 0.02 *** 0.096 0.078 0.02 *** 0.116 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.058 0.03 0.020 0.054 0.058 0.03 0.020 0.057 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.198 0.02 *** 0.211 0.198 0.02 *** 0.238 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.352 0.03 *** 0.324 0.220 0.03 *** 0.238 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.127 0.02 *** 0.143 0.127 0.02 *** 0.163 Political interest → Associational membership 0.241 0.03 *** 0.156 0.241 0.03 *** 0.209 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.097 0.04 0.013 -0.046 -0.097 0.04 0.013 -0.053 Political interest → Political participation 0.569 0.03 *** 0.301 0.569 0.03 *** 0.391 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.396 0.05 *** 0.181 0.396 0.05 *** 0.219 Political ideology → Distance party government 0.041 0.01 *** 0.161 0.302 0.02 *** 0.537 Political ideology → Political participation -0.003 0.01 0.609 -0.014 -0.093 0.02 *** -0.143 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.136 0.03 *** 0.120 0.136 0.03 *** 0.093 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.280 0.03 *** 0.214 0.280 0.03 *** 0.173 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.409 0.03 *** 0.275 0.409 0.03 *** 0.225 Associational membership → Political participation 0.334 0.02 *** 0.272 0.334 0.02 *** 0.266 Associational membership → Social trust -0.010 0.04 0.775 -0.008 -0.010 0.04 0.775 -0.007 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.020 0.03 0.534 0.014 0.020 0.03 0.534 0.013 Political participation → Social trust 0.121 0.03 *** 0.113 0.121 0.03 *** 0.102 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions 0.029 0.03 0.313 0.025 0.029 0.03 0.313 0.023 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.217 0.02 *** 0.165 0.217 0.02 *** 0.175 State of welfare policies → Social trust 0.018 0.03 0.542 0.019 0.018 0.03 0.542 0.019 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.215 0.03 *** 0.209 0.215 0.03 *** 0.217 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.577 0.02 *** 0.507 0.577 0.02 *** 0.516 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.152 0.03 *** 0.171 0.152 0.03 *** 0.171 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.256 0.02 *** 0.329 0.256 0.02 *** 0.323
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions -0.008 0.05 0.873 -0.007 -0.008 0.05 0.873 -0.008 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.348 0.05 *** 0.377 0.348 0.05 *** 0.364
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.760 1.000 0.726 Social trust → Trust_2 1.016 0.04 *** 0.763 1.016 0.04 *** 0.737 Social trust → Trust_3 0.842 0.04 *** 0.641 0.842 0.04 *** 0.640 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.896 0.04 *** 0.696 0.607 0.05 *** 0.453 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.955 0.03 *** 0.766 0.955 0.03 *** 0.801 Confidence in political institutions → Parliament 1.000 0.792 1.000 0.799
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest -0.014 0.04 0.728 -0.010 -0.196 0.05 *** -0.125 res6 ↔ res8 1.155 0.11 *** 0.339 1.343 0.12 *** 0.410
R2 Estimate Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 0.000 Political ideology 0.003 0.020 Distance party government 0.026 0.289 Associational membership 0.036 0.057 Political participation 0.191 0.288 State of welfare policies 0.061 0.069 Satisfaction economy 0.151 0.087 Satisfaction government 0.496 0.477 Satisfaction with life 0.039 0.033 Confidence in political institutions 0.362 0.384 Social trust 0.209 0.204
56
A.4.9 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Comparison between Spain and Sweden
SPAIN SWEDEN Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology 0.495 0.08 *** 0.128 0.495 0.08 *** 0.118 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.049 0.02 0.035 0.061 0.313 0.04 *** 0.209 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.115 0.03 *** 0.097 0.115 0.03 *** 0.077 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.239 0.04 *** 0.198 0.125 0.03 *** 0.100 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.047 0.02 0.010 0.059 0.047 0.02 0.010 0.038 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.042 0.02 0.069 0.037 0.042 0.02 0.069 0.036 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.210 0.02 *** 0.225 0.210 0.02 *** 0.189 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.341 0.02 *** 0.316 0.341 0.02 *** 0.287 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.166 0.02 *** 0.177 0.166 0.02 *** 0.180 Political interest → Associational membership 0.217 0.04 *** 0.141 0.417 0.05 *** 0.196 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.041 0.04 0.300 -0.019 -0.041 0.04 0.300 -0.017 Political interest → Political participation 0.576 0.04 *** 0.306 0.576 0.04 *** 0.274 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.442 0.04 *** 0.202 0.442 0.04 *** 0.192 Political ideology → Distance party government 0.041 0.01 *** 0.162 -0.072 0.01 *** -0.183 Political ideology → Political participation -0.010 0.01 0.042 -0.041 -0.010 0.01 0.042 -0.029 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.150 0.03 *** 0.133 0.047 0.03 0.062 0.046 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.295 0.04 *** 0.226 0.090 0.03 *** 0.083 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.363 0.03 *** 0.247 0.213 0.02 *** 0.194 Associational membership → Political participation 0.318 0.02 *** 0.259 0.318 0.02 *** 0.323 Associational membership → Social trust 0.050 0.02 0.029 0.036 0.050 0.02 0.029 0.054 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions -0.006 0.04 0.880 -0.004 0.121 0.02 *** 0.113 Political participation → Social trust 0.123 0.04 *** 0.108 0.037 0.03 0.155 0.039 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions 0.004 0.02 0.840 0.004 0.004 0.02 0.840 0.004 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.201 0.02 *** 0.155 0.201 0.02 *** 0.187 State of welfare policies → Social trust -0.022 0.03 0.519 -0.022 0.074 0.03 0.002 0.090 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.154 0.02 *** 0.150 0.154 0.02 *** 0.158 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.583 0.03 *** 0.518 0.455 0.02 *** 0.450 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.163 0.03 *** 0.183 0.034 0.02 0.124 0.037 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.290 0.03 *** 0.367 0.502 0.02 *** 0.556
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions -0.042 0.05 0.347 -0.041 0.080 0.04 0.073 0.068 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.371 0.03 *** 0.380 0.371 0.03 *** 0.436
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.794 1.000 0.718 Social trust → Trust_2 0.908 0.03 *** 0.734 0.908 0.03 *** 0.710 Social trust → Trust_3 0.762 0.03 *** 0.620 0.762 0.03 *** 0.559 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.892 0.04 *** 0.695 0.761 0.03 *** 0.618 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.962 0.02 *** 0.770 0.962 0.02 *** 0.852 Confidence in political institutions → Parliament 1.000 0.793 1.000 0.817
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest -0.014 0.04 0.728 -0.010 0.069 0.02 0.002 0.079 res6 ↔ res8 1.147 0.11 *** 0.337 1.157 0.09 *** 0.338
R2 Estimate Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 0.000 Political ideology 0.016 0.014 Distance party government 0.026 0.034 Associational membership 0.027 0.090 Political participation 0.184 0.217 State of welfare policies 0.069 0.038 Satisfaction economy 0.151 0.089 Satisfaction government 0.486 0.356 Satisfaction with life 0.049 0.016 Confidence in political institutions 0.349 0.555 Social trust 0.192 0.353
57
A.4.10 Estimated parameters for the causal model of social trust and confidence in political institutions. Comparison between Spain and United Kingdom
SPAIN UNITED KINGDOM Regression Weights Estimate S.E. P Standard. Estimate S.E. P Standard. Religious observance → Political ideology 0.138 0.03 *** 0.036 0.138 0.03 *** 0.089 Religious observance → Associational membership 0.050 0.02 0.031 0.062 0.207 0.02 *** 0.202 Religious observance → Satisfaction with life 0.080 0.02 *** 0.068 0.080 0.02 *** 0.059 Informal sociability → Satisfaction with life 0.236 0.04 *** 0.196 0.079 0.03 0.020 0.054 Informal sociability → Associational membership 0.064 0.02 *** 0.079 0.064 0.02 *** 0.059 Informal sociability → Social trust 0.028 0.02 0.183 0.026 0.028 0.02 0.183 0.025 Satisfaction with life → State of welfare policies 0.221 0.02 *** 0.234 0.221 0.02 *** 0.238 Satisfaction with life → Satisfaction economy 0.328 0.02 *** 0.304 0.328 0.02 *** 0.325 Satisfaction with life → Social trust 0.137 0.02 *** 0.152 0.137 0.02 *** 0.181 Political interest → Associational membership 0.216 0.04 *** 0.141 0.423 0.04 *** 0.237 Political interest → State of welfare policies -0.144 0.04 *** -0.067 -0.144 0.04 *** -0.066 Political interest → Political participation 0.528 0.03 *** 0.281 0.528 0.03 *** 0.300 Political interest → Confidence in political institutions 0.383 0.04 *** 0.174 0.383 0.04 *** 0.171 Political ideology → Distance party government 0.041 0.01 *** 0.161 -0.137 0.02 *** -0.190 Political ideology → Political participation -0.010 0.01 0.080 -0.041 -0.010 0.01 0.080 -0.016 Distance party government → State of welfare policies 0.132 0.02 *** 0.116 0.132 0.02 *** 0.117 Distance party government → Satisfaction economy 0.292 0.03 *** 0.224 0.181 0.03 *** 0.147 Distance party government → Satisfaction government 0.364 0.03 *** 0.248 0.246 0.02 *** 0.183 Associational membership → Political participation 0.340 0.02 *** 0.278 0.340 0.02 *** 0.345 Associational membership → Social trust 0.043 0.02 0.065 0.032 0.043 0.02 0.065 0.043 Associational membership → Confidence in political institutions 0.059 0.02 0.007 0.041 0.059 0.02 0.007 0.047 Political participation → Social trust 0.108 0.02 *** 0.099 0.108 0.02 *** 0.106 Political participation → Confidence in political institutions -0.012 0.02 0.589 -0.010 -0.012 0.02 0.589 -0.009 State of welfare policies → Satisfaction government 0.244 0.02 *** 0.189 0.244 0.02 *** 0.205 State of welfare policies → Social trust -0.016 0.04 0.659 -0.017 0.132 0.03 *** 0.162 State of welfare policies → Confidence in political institutions 0.166 0.02 *** 0.163 0.166 0.02 *** 0.163 Satisfaction economy → Satisfaction government 0.557 0.02 *** 0.494 0.557 0.02 *** 0.510 Satisfaction economy → Confidence in political institutions 0.160 0.03 *** 0.180 0.021 0.02 0.354 0.022 Satisfaction government → Confidence in political institutions 0.289 0.03 *** 0.364 0.484 0.02 *** 0.565
Social trust → Confidence in political institutions -0.039 0.06 0.536 -0.037 0.106 0.04 0.012 0.085 Confidence in political institutions → Social trust 0.359 0.06 *** 0.384 0.222 0.03 *** 0.277
Social trust → Trust_1 1.000 0.773 1.000 0.723 Social trust → Trust_2 0.958 0.03 *** 0.744 0.958 0.03 *** 0.731 Social trust → Trust_3 0.815 0.03 *** 0.635 0.815 0.03 *** 0.630 Confidence in political institutions → Courts 0.888 0.04 *** 0.694 0.704 0.03 *** 0.582 Confidence in political institutions → Politicians 0.946 0.02 *** 0.763 0.946 0.02 *** 0.860 Confidence in political institutions → Parliament 1.000 0.795 1.000 0.853
Covariances Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Estimate S.E. P Correlat. Religious observance ↔ Political interest -0.014 0.04 0.728 -0.010 0.163 0.03 *** 0.120 res6 ↔ res8 1.160 0.11 *** 0.340 1.210 0.09 *** 0.328
R2 Estimate Estimate Informal sociability 0.000 0.000 Political ideology 0.001 0.008 Distance party government 0.026 0.036 Associational membership 0.030 0.112 Political participation 0.180 0.263 State of welfare policies 0.073 0.074 Satisfaction economy 0.143 0.127 Satisfaction government 0.482 0.454 Satisfaction with life 0.043 0.006 Confidence in political institutions 0.344 0.542 Social trust 0.182 0.268